“In the process of fighting for freedom, I lost my own freedom,” Dutch politician Geert Wilders explained.

Our weekly Canadian program, “On the Front Line,” was one of the media outlets carefully selected to interview Wilders during his first visit to Canada last week. For several years, public and private discourse has centered around the sensationalism of Wilders’ epic battle against the Islamization of the West. But this interview (still to be aired) revealed some of Wilders’ less publicized views on moderate Islam and the personal cost of his quest.

Wilders, who remains under explicit death threats from Muslims, is dismissed by leftists as a scary, anti-Muslim radical.  While one may disagree with his views and methodologies, his struggle against radicalism is nothing short of a Western obligation. The principal point of contention on Wilder’s approach is that he does not readily make a distinction between moderate and radical Islam.   He referred to the famous Belgian Professor of Islamic Studies—Urbain Vermeulen—describing Islam as 95 percent ideology and 5 percent religion.  Islam, like communism and fascism, is totalitarian and seeks to rule every aspect of individual and state life.

Wilders pointed out that “there are more mosques than windmills in Holland today.”  His answer is to stop building new mosques and madrassas that teach violence and hate, and to stop immigration from Muslim countries to stem the Islamization of the West. He does not advocate deporting Muslims, except those that have crossed the “red line” which refers to any Muslim acting according to Shariah and against our values (for example, practicing FGM and honour killings). Such Muslims, says Wilders, should be stripped of their western nationality and sent back to their countries of origin.

Yet on further probing about the moderate Muslims who face death threats fighting for the same anti-Islamist cause, Wilders did recognize the existence of moderates and makes a key distinction between the Muslim individual and the ideologies of Islam. The more moderates the better, he said, and we should support them in any way possible.  He also made the point that the Koran regards such Muslims as apostates worthy of death, yet if they see themselves as Muslims, we must support them.

The final question we posed to Wilders concerned  the personal toll on his life, even before the release of his short film “Fitna.” His neutral look gave way to his humanity with a brief sadness as he replied:

If he only felt about America the way he feels about Islam.

But he doesn’t, and so he constantly puts our interests below the interests of our enemy. His latest tribute to Islam is his siding with “the rebels” in Libya, “rebels” who are linked to Al Qaeda. Under Obama, the Muslim world is becoming more Islamic and the enemy is becoming more emboldened, as if it’s his job to make it so. Barack Hussein Obama, a man in love with all things Islam, has given our enemy great reason to believe that they can actually achieve their goals, and do so sooner than they even dreamed of. The enemy understands that the one man in all the world who is supposed to be their worst enemy is actually their greatest hope.

The Islamophobia panic, heightened by Peter King’s congressional hearings on radicalization, has spilled over into Canada. Leftist media outlets like CNN have substantial influence on public discourse, and now, the publicly funded Canadian broadcaster CBC has decided to make the hearings a top item on its daily program “As it Happens.” The program’s approach seeks to undermine the credibility of the hearings and add to the Islamophobia hysteria spurred on by the Muslim Brotherhood.

First, the CBC omitted a statement from King’s opening words that:

“the overwhelming majority of Muslim-Americans are outstanding Americans and make enormous contributions to our country.”

It went on to promote CAIR, and featured one Muslim guest to give his ‘expert’ analysis:  Alejandro Beutel of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), which Steven Emerson has deemed an Islamist organization.

While CAIR officials have stated publicly that the group does not advocate Jihad by the sword, it uses something even more dangerous: Ideological Jihad which employs lies and deceptions (al-Tiqiyya) while strategically manipulating Western emotions.

Just look at Keith Ellison’s star performance at the King hearings where he practically wailed through his description of the anti-Muslim treatment of  Mohammed Hamdani, the young Pakistani-born American who perished during his rescue efforts on 9-11.

Mohammed Salman Hamdani was a fellow American who gave his life for other Americans.  His life should not be identified as just a member of an ethnic group or just a member of a religion but a fellow American who gave everything for his fellow Americans…..

CBC’s “As it Happens” featured Ellison’s crying testimony followed by Beutel’s commentary. While racism and stereotypes need to be addressed, the King hearings are not the place to do so.  But Islamists mix it in to form a poisonous brew that stirs emotions and stifles the issue of radicalism.

As a final blow, Ottawa lawyer and top security Intelligence Specialist David Harris –who had seen the program’s description on the CBC Facebook page–posted his fair assessment of the coverage, warning about the agendas of CAIR and the MPAC.  Within a couple of hours Harris’ post magically disappeared in what was a clear cut case of censorship.

In Canada citizens have been influenced by biased news coverage claiming the King hearings have promoted McCarthyism and Islamophobia. The hype has been fueled and fanned by Muslim Brotherhood offshoots like CAIR and the MPAC, hell-bent on undermining the serious problem the West has with creeping Islamization. What the King hearings have exposed is how much we need to push back. Pity the hearings excluded witnesses like Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson who could have better dealt with the onslaught coming from the leftist media working in overdrive.

Despite weather forecasts of thunderstorms, the skies were clear and beautiful Sunday afternoon for our Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) rally against the Ground Zero mega-mosque, but not as beautiful as the patriotic crowd who came out to stand for freedom against this insulting manifestation of Islamic supremacism. It was a real cross-section of humanity: every race, creed, color and religion were out in all their glory.

My SIOA colleague, bestselling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer, and I were expecting 500 people to attend our rally. Imagine our wonder when close to 5,000 showed up. Other estimates ranged up to 10,000. The crowd was so huge that it filled the police pens and Zuccotti Park, and overflowed to the other side of the street.

Despite the huge size of the rally, there was little media coverage at the event, which indicates the media's bias. The NY News actually ran a segment repeatedly Sunday afternoon about the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender parade, but not a word about our massive rally. And all Sunday, Fox News was running--get this--Greta Van Susteren's years-old interview with Natalee Holloway's murderer.

But there were loads of bloggers, including El Marco, Pamela Hall, and others, who put the mainstream media to shame with their thorough coverage and exemplary photojournalism. They showed yet again how essential the new media is today--and how useless the old....

Useless and worse. Read it all.

Since I wrote in HUMAN EVENTS on May 14 about the plans to build a giant 15-story mosque and Islamic Center next to Ground Zero, the deceptions and Islamic supremacist intentions of the mosque organizers have become more obvious. Yet Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and the New York political establishment refuse to listen to the will of the people.

This why the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) June 6 rally against the proposed mega-mosque is so important. The Islamic supremacists must not be allowed to do a victory dance on the hallowed burial ground of Ground Zero. They must be exposed and shamed until they withdraw their plans for the mosque.

Bloomberg framed it as a freedom of religion issue: "I think it's fair to say if somebody was going to try, on that piece of property, to build a church or a synagogue, nobody would be yelling and screaming. And the fact of the matter is that Muslims have a right to do it, too.... What is great about America and particularly New York is we welcome everybody, and if we are so afraid of something like this, what does that say about us?... If you are religious, you do not want the government picking religions, because what do you do the day they don't pick yours?"

While I agree that that the government should keep its nose out of religion, also believe that if the mayor really believes government should stay out of it, he shouldn't publicly take one side. But the mayor already has chosen sides, before plans for this mosque became public.

SIOA has called on Bloomberg many times to remove Omar Mohammedi, a lawyer tied to the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), from New York City's Human Rights Commission. Bloomberg keeps him on. And before Times Square jihad bomber Faisal Shahzad was caught, Bloomberg offered his opinion: that the would-be car bomber was probably a right-winger who was upset about Obamacare.

This is why I believe petitions to the mayor are a waste of time. But the June 6 rally will show him that he is on the wrong side of the will of the people because the people of New York know that the mayor is wrong.

This mosque is not about freedom of religion. It's about insulting America and the victims of 9/11 and establishing an international symbol for Islamic supremacism in New York. The mega-mosque will be the rallying cry for the universal caliphate--a shrine to jihad at the cherished site of Islamic conquest....

Read it all.

A bus-ad campaign that seeks to offer resources to those considering leaving Islam already has stirred up controversy in Miami and New York, but its next city may create the most fireworks - Detroit, the U.S. metropolitan area with the heaviest concentration of Middle Easterners.

The Detroit-area bus authority has refused to run the ads from Stop Islamization of America, an organization headed up by conservative activist and anti-jihad blogger Pamela Geller, prompting SIOA to file a federal lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Mrs. Geller said the transport authority's refusal to run her ads violates her First Amendment right of free speech, and she will take the lawsuit to the Supreme Court if necessary.

"It is against the law, and I tell you, those ads will go up whether they like it or not," Mrs. Geller said....

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Michigan, said he expects that even if the ads do run in Detroit, they will not elicit any response besides puzzlement. The Detroit area, centering on Dearborn, is home to a quarter-million Muslims, whom Mr. Walid does not expect to react favorably to the presence of SIOA's ads in their city.

"If she's planning to put those Islamophobic ads in Detroit, she's wasting her time," Mr. Walid said.

The Detroit area also has a large Arab and Middle Eastern Christian population, centering on suburbs north of the city proper.

Mrs. Geller said SIOA began its national city-by-city ad campaign in response to bus ads in Florida inviting people to convert to Islam.

The SIOA ads read, "Fatwah on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions? Get answers!" and provides a Web address that links to organizations that serve Muslim apostates. The bus ads are running in Miami through June 15 and began running in New York last week and will run through late June, Mrs. Geller said.

Part of the conflict centers on whether Muslims are free to leave Islam without retribution, and whether their families will punish or kill them for conversion.

One such case that has made national headlines in the U.S. involves 17-year-old Rifqa Bary, who fled her parents' Ohio home to stay with a Florida Christian minister after she converted. In the ensuing custody and foster care disputes, her Muslim parents deny that the girl will be harmed if she returns home.

Abdul Rahman, an Afghan citizen, was arrested in 2006 for converting to Christianity there, and members of his family asked prosecutors to seek the death penalty. But the international outcry over Mr. Rahman's case, and the fact that the Afghan government was installed by the U.S. invasion - plus doubts about the case and Mr. Rahman's sanity - combined to prompt the court to release him.

The consensus view among Muslim jurists worldwide is that apostasy, unless mitigated by such factors as mental illness or duress, is punishable by death. Mrs. Geller cited a fatwa, or ruling point on Islamic law, issued by the authoritative Al-Azhar University in 1978, that said: "This man has committed apostasy; he must be given a chance to repent, and if he does not, then he must be killed, according to Shariah [law]."

Mr. Walid denied Mrs. Geller's claims, though he provided no authoritative citations, and attacked Mrs. Geller's character.

"She's a well-known anti-Muslim bigot," he said. "She makes no distinction between extremist Muslims and mainstream Muslims."

Mr. Walid said that although there have been a few cases of violence against Muslims who convert away from the religion, there is no retribution for those who choose to leave Islam.

"People are free to leave Islam or any religion at any time. This is the United States of America," he said.

But a public educator in Dearborn, speaking on the condition of anonymity owing to fear of retribution, said there is a climate of fear in the Detroit area's Muslim community.

"The fear is palpable. I know there are things I am 'not allowed' to say. A discussion of religion with a Muslim person is often prefaced by the statement, 'Dont say anything about the Prophet [Muhammad].' In free society, open and honest conversation is not usually begun by a prohibition. Threats and intimidation are just part of life here."

CAIR's denial of the dangers of apostasy are part of the reason behind Mrs. Geller's campaign, which she defined as a religious-freedom issue.

"We're not encouraging people to leave Islam," she said.

A federal agency has rejected a request for a trademark by the organization "Stop Islamization of America" because its name may "disparage" Muslims.

The group launched by Atlas Shrugs blogger Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has drawn national attention for its bus-sign campaign offering support for Muslims who want to leave Islam. SIOA currently is organizing opposition to plans for an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero in New York City.

Now the group reports the U.S. government has refused its request for a trademark designation for its name.

The government response, posted on the site, states, "The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease.

"The proposed mark further disparages Muslims because, taking into account the nature of the services ('providing information regarding understanding and preventing terrorism'), it implies that Islam is associated with violence and threats," the government agency said.

"The trademark examining attorney refers to the excerpted articles from the LEXISNEXIS® computerized database referencing how many Muslims view terrorists as illegitimate adherents of Islam. ... Therefore, the suggestion that Islam equates terrorism would be disparaging to a substantial group of Muslims," it said.

Geller commented in a report on the group's site

"It is everywhere, folks, in every aspect of our lives from the big stuff (Major Hasan cover-up) to the minutia (trademark registration)," she said. "Take a look at this. Robert and I registered the name Stop Islamization of American for trademark. It was refused."

A link to a 20-page summary from the government's office of trademark applications listed definitions for Islam and terror.

"Accordingly, the applied-for mark is refused under Section 2(a) because it consists of matter which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute Muslims and the Islamic religion," the government report said....

We're happy to announce these SIOA state officers:

David Engel SIOA-Wisconsin

Cameron Reddy SIOA-MichiganSioa towers

Eric Janzer SIOA-Pennsylvania

You want to become a state officer? Contact us!

Further, we will be starting college chapters as well. Here is the first:

Stephen Dean SIOA Chapter, Student Activism Texas A & M

Leadership roles mean you would be our eyes and ears in your city and state. If you see signs of encroaching islamization in school or public square you would alert us and we would, with you, develop a strategy, an action plan to fight it. An action for an action. It's that simple.

Hold a rally. We will come speak if needed. Hold a demonstration. Alert the local media to what is going on right under their noses. Educate yourself, and the public, about how Sharia is advancing in the U.S.

We are often asked, "What can we do?" SIOA is an answer to that question, but its scope and influence is up to you. What you make of it in your area depends on your time, your talents, and your awareness. What you make of it depends on how Sharia is advancing in your area, and what you can do to alert the public to that advance, and roll it back in unapologetic defense of our Constitutional principles. What can you do? It's up to you. But we are here to help. Contact us.

We need you. Won't you volunteer to head a state or school chapter? Be an officer in SIOA!

My SIOA colleague Pamela Geller, one of the most dynamic and well-informed speakers on the scene today, will be a featured speaker at this rally in solidarity with Israel on April 25 -- so it promises to be an electrifying event. Be there! And if you haven't joined SIOA yet, join now.

Get more info here.

I hope everyone who can will be in New York on April 25 for the rally to Stand in Solidarity with Israel's Right to Build and Live in Its Own Country.

This is a core element of resisting the Islamization of America: to stand in solidarity with the other states and peoples who are facing enemies holding the same ideology. The 20th-century jihad theorist Maududi wrote that "non-Muslims have absolutely no right to wield the reins of power in any part of God's earth," and said that if they do, Muslims have the obligation to dislodge them from that power by any means possible.

That is the ultimate basis of the jihad against Israel. Those who think that land concessions or a settlement freeze will satisfy the Palestinians have fallen for propaganda that is belied by the clear and unilateral language of the Hamas Charter calling for the total destruction of Israel, as well as by the ongoing refusal of Palestinian leaders to recognize Israel's basic right to exist, and by the Islamic doctrine that states that any land that has once belonged to the House of Islam belongs to it by right forever.

A right understanding of Islamic theology and law leads to the realization that Israel can make NO concessions that will ever satisfy the Palestinians and end the conflict. The only thing Israel can do is stand firm. And it must stand firm against an Islamic supremacist enemy that would destroy it -- the same Islamic supremacist enemy that, while substantially weaker vis-a-vis the U.S. than it is vis-a-vis Israel, has the same ultimate agenda here, and is asserting Sharia prerogatives in the U.S. already wherever and whenever it can.

As such, we in SIOA stand proudly with Israel. And we hope to communicate to Americans and to all others that our struggle and Israel's struggle is the same. Were this generally understood by American, Israeli, and European leaders, we would not be in the fix we're in today.

The most dangerous Islamist in the world is neither Afghani nor Arab.

He comes from neither Sudan nor Somalia.

And he resides in neither the mountains of Pakistan nor the deserts of the Palestinian territories.

This individual has toppled the secular government of Turkey and established madrassahs throughout the world.

His schools indoctrinate children in the tenets of radical Islam and prepare adolescents for the Islamization of the world.

More than 90 of these madrassahs have been established as charter schools throughout the United States. They are funded by American taxpayers.

One of these charter schools - - Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) in Minnesota - - is so radically Islamic and subversive in nature that the Minnesota Department of Education issued two citations against it and the American Civil Liberties Union is suing it.

Dozens of his universities, including the Faith University in Istanbul, train young men to become lawyers, accountants, and political leaders so that they can take an active part in the restoration of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamization of the Western World.
He also allegedly operates compounds to train jihadis in the tactics of guerrilla warfare.
This individual has amassed a fortune - - over $30 billion - - for the creation of a universal caliphate.

His name is Fethullan Gulen and he resides not in the wilds of southern Turkey - - but the mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

From his fortress headquarters, located on 28 acres at 1857 Mt. Eaton Road in Saylorsburg, PA, Gulen plots the overthrow of secular governments and oversees the spread of education jihad throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Gulen is surrounded by an army of over 100 Turkish Islamists, who guard him and tend to his needs. The army is comprised of armed militants who wear suits and ties and do not look like traditional Islamists in cloaks and turbans. They follow their hocaefendi's (master lord's) orders and even refrain from marrying until age fifty per his instructions. When they do marry, their spouses are expected to dress in the Islamic manner, as dictated by Gülen himself.

The Saylorsburg property consists of a massive chalet surrounded by numerous out buildings, including recreational centers, dormitories, cabins for visiting foreign dignitaries, a helicopter pad, and firing ranges.

Neighbors complain of the incessant sounds of gunfire - - including the rat-tat-tat of fully automatic weapons - - coming the compound and the low flying helicopter that circles the area in search of all intruders.

The FBI has been called to the scene, the neighbors say, but no action has been taken to end the illegal activity.

Sentries stand guard at the gates to the estate to turn away all curiosity seekers.

Within the sentry hut are wide screen televisions that project high resolution images from security cameras.

Before the hut is a sign that reads "Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center."

It's hard for the local residents to understand that the Muslim who operates this compound is not an American political or intelligence official -- but rather a radical Islamist from Turkey.

Gulen fled Turkey in 1998 to avoid prosecution on charges that he was attempting to undermine Turkey's secular government with the objective of establishing an Islamic government. Since his arrival in Pennsylvania, the Department of Homeland Security has been trying to deport him. But in 2008 a federal court ruled that Gulan was an individual with "extraordinary ability in the field of education" who merited permanent residence status in the U.S.

The ruling remains odd, because Gulen has no formal education training.

Gülen, according to the Middle East Quarterly, was a student and follower of Sheikh Sa'id-i Kurdi (1878-1960), also known as Sa'id-i Nursi, the founder of the Islamist Nur (light) movement. After Turkey's war of independence, Kurdi demanded, in an address to the new parliament, that the new republic be based on Islamic principles. He turned against Atatürk and his reforms and against the new modern, secular, Western republic.

How powerful is Gulen? And why is he such a threat to America and the Western world?
Consider this.

Turkey is now ruled by the Justice and Democratic Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP)- - a party under the Gulen's control. Abdullah Gul, Turkey's first Islamist President, is a Gulen disciple along with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, the head of Turkey's Council of Higher Education.

Under the AKP, Turkey has transformed from a secular state into an Islamic country with 85,000 active mosques - - one for every 350- citizens - - the highest number per capita in the world, 90,000 imams, more imams than teachers and physicians - - and thousands of state-run Islamic schools.

Despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Turkey has transferred its alliance from Europe and the United States to Russia and Iran. It has moved toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria and created a pervasive anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-America animus throughout the populace.

Speaking on Monday at the inauguration ceremony of "TRT al Turkiye", the new channel of the state run TV station TRT, Prime Minister Erdogan said Turkey will always be on the side of Muslims wherever they are.

Gulen's tentacles stretch throughout the country since his followers, known as Fethullahists, have gained control of the country's media outlets, its financial institutions and banks, and its business organizations.

According to Bayram Balci, a Turkish scholar, the Gulen schools that have been established throughout the world seek to expand "the Islamization of Turkish nationality and the Turification of Islam" in order to bring about a universal caliphate ruled by Islamic law.

Several countries have outlawed the establishment of Gulen schools and cemaats (communities) within their borders - - including Russia and Uzbekistan. Even the Netherlands, a nation that embraces pluralism and tolerance, has opted to cut funding to the Gulen schools because of their imminent threat to the social order.

But Gulen's activities in the United States, including the establishment of an armed fortress in the midst of the Pocono Mountains, have escaped national press attention.

In his public statements, Gulen espouses a liberal version of Sunni/Hanafi Islam and promotes the Muslim notion of hizmet - - altruistic service to the common good.

Despite the paramilitary training at his Pocono fortress, Gulen has condemned terrorism and called for interfaith dialogue. He has met with Pope John Paul II, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomeos, and Israeli Sephardic Head Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.

In private, Gulen has stated that "in order to reach the ideal Muslim society 'every method and path is acceptable, [including] lying to people.'"

In a sermon that was aired on Turkish television, Gulen said:

You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers ... until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria ... like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it ... You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey ... Until that time, any step taken would be too early--like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all--in confidence ... trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here--[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here.

Why has the federal government opted to turn a blind eye to Gulen and his mountain fortress?

Why have Gulen's madrassahs been kept under the radar screen of Homeland Security?

Why have the CIA and FBI allowed Gulen to wreak havoc and topple secular governments without interruption or intervention?

The answers remain anyone's guess.

We are pleased to announce that Stop Islamization of America has a new Facebook site, which you can find here.

Pamela Geller and I have been asked by Anders Gravers of SIOE to take over the SIOA group, and have accepted. This is resulted in a change in the SIOA Facebook site. If you joined the earlier Stop the Islamization of America Facebook group, please note that that group has been changed, and is no longer Stop Islamization of America. Please join the new group if you want to keep up with our work at SIOA -- a website is in development, but in the meantime the Facebook page will be your one-stop source for news on SIOA activities.

Pamela Geller and I are deeply grateful to Kendra Adams for her previous work with SIOA, and applaud her dedication to the cause of stopping the spread of Sharia in the United States. We hope that many more people like Kendra Adams will arise and defend American Constitutionalism, the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all before the law, and we look forward to a long and ultimately victorious effort to defend these principles.

If you live in or near New York City, a rally will be held for Nigeria's Christians on April 7 at the Permanent Mission of Nigeria, 2nd Avenue and 44th Street.

On Wednesday, April 7th from 4:45 pm on, religious, civic and human rights leaders of many faiths and backgrounds will gather in front of the Nigerian Consulate in New York City to raise their voices of conscience about the continuing massacres of Christians as well as the ongoing barbaric persecution of non-Muslim minorities by jihadists in Nigeria and elsewhere across the globe.

While there are no official figures yet to confirm the numbers killed in the March 7th Massacre of Christians in Nigeria, we do know that many of the victims were children, women and the elderly. They were hacked to death, beheaded, and set on fire. Those arrested reportedly belong to the Muslim Fulani terror group.

A press conference is expected to take place from 4:30-5:00 PM.The rally, sponsored by members of Action Alliance, First Things, and the Institute for Religion and Democracy, begins directly after the press conference and will run until 7:00 PM.

Please join us and fight Islamic jihad.

The smart new design above, which comes to us courtesy Big Fur Hat, who designed it under capable direction from Pamela Geller, warrants a repost of this announcement from Stop the Islamisation of Europe:

New leaders of Stop Islamization of America

We have now formed a new board for SIOA. The new board of SIOA is: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Stephen Gash and Anders Gravers.

The leaders of SIOA are Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

Stephen and I have discussed for quite some time the fact that SIOA has not developed in the direction we wanted. There are groups enough who just write about the danger of Islam, but very few groups that actually do something to try to stop the Islamisation of the Western civilization.

SIOA was meant to be a group that should take action, staging demonstrations, happenings and events against the Islamisation of the U.S.

The way Stephen and I see it, we need to make SIOA more active. And in order to do that, we have now -- after working for a long time to persuade them to take this on -- gotten a yes from both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to become the leaders of SIOA.

We think they are the right people to bring SIOA to the forefront in the fight against the Islamisation of the U.S.

Anders Gravers

The late Michael Radu's new book, published posthumously, alas, by Encounter Books, discusses, clearly and forthrightly, the Islamization of Europe.

And it contains a Foreword written by...me.

"Michael Radu, with characteristic incisiveness, cuts through the mindless multicultural relativism of modern liberalism to demolish the illusions of well-meaning but ignorant appeasers of Islamic radicalism. The crux of his argument: tolerance of intolerant Muslims in Europe threatens the civil liberties and individual rights that European culture has so brilliantly advanced over centuries of struggle." -- Nils H. Wessell, former Director, Foreign Policy Research Institute

"Michael Radu has written a most interesting and comprehensive book about the important issues of Muslim immigration and Islamism in contemporary Europe. No matter what readers viewpoints might be they will learn an enormous amount." -- Barry Rubin, author of The Tragedy of the Middle East and Global Survey of Islamism

An open letter to Geert Wilders:

Though we have not met, I feel as if I know you well. I have followed your trials—and trial—closely and, like many who are engaged in the same fight against Islamic supremacism and the various forms of jihad that confront us, I endorse your campaign on behalf of the West and its traditional liberties in every way that I can.

Indeed, I wonder if you are aware of the extent of your de facto “support network,” a majority in America who, according to a Pew Research Center survey, are “very concerned” about the rise of Islamic extremism, and certainly a significant minority of the increasingly vocal. The same may now be the case in your own country and in a number of other European nations as well—Switzerland and its minaret affair come immediately to mind—as ordinary people gradually come to realize the threat they are facing.

Of course, we can write off the political and intellectual elites who, through laziness, timidity, adherence to the craven doctrine of political correctness, and no doubt the profiteering impulse, are in bed with the succubus who would guzzle their blood. And this is no blood libel. In addition, you probably strike these presumably more decorous sensibilities as too blunt, aggressive or politically ambitious, which is clearly what prompts their efforts at character assassination against you. But your passionate resistance to the creeping Islamization of Europe prompts me in turn to ask: Does this in Wilders seem ambitious? In any event, pay no attention to these tergiversators. As Andrew Bostom writes, “The transparent agenda in characterizations of Wilders is to demonize Western Europe’s most informed and courageous politician resisting the actual jihadism…But the Swiss minaret referendum, and even more emphatically, burgeoning Dutch support for Wilders and his PVV, indicate that ordinary Europeans reject the capitulation to Islamic supremacism their cultural relativist media and political elites deliberately abet.”

In your fine speech to the British House of Lords on March 5, 2010, you established the principle, as you have many times before, that you and your Freedom Party do not “have a problem with Muslims as such.” You distinguish between law-abiding Muslims and the ideology of Islam based on the Koran. “There are many moderate Muslims,” you declare, “but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.” The first part of your proposition is a socially appropriate sentiment, but the second part begets a conceptual problem which is decidedly unpleasant to address.

Forgive me for suggesting that you probably had no choice but to make this subtle discrimination between the faithful and the faith, which implies a certain disconnect between the wish and the reality, as you must surely realize. You tread on very delicate ground here, as you are doubtlessly constrained to do in order to avoid alienating both “moderate Muslims” and non-Muslims who regard themselves as unprejudiced.

When you rightly assert that “Islam is not merely a religion [but] a totalitarian ideology,” note that the Koran “commands Muslims to establish shariah law,” claim that “Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life,” and go on to compare the Koran with Mein Kampf, quoting Winston Churchill to reinforce your thesis, the distinction you adduce between individual Muslims and the collective institution of Islam tends to collapse. For what you are really saying is that moderate Muslims cannot be devout Muslims or, in truth, cannot be Muslims at all. What sort of Muslim remains after you have factored out shariah law, effectively compared Muhammed to Hitler, and contended that the Koran should be outlawed, or at least designated as a species of hate literature, as you proposed in your letter to the newspaper De Volkskrant on August 8, 2007?

You now find yourself uncomfortably situated, so to speak, between the devil and the deep Red Sea. Not being a Muslim yourself, you don’t have the option of polemical emphasis that derives from rejecting the faith, becoming an apostate-on-principle or converting to another faith, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish, among others—all of whom took the second part of your logic to its inevitable terminus. They understood that one cannot honestly profess Islam without abiding by the decrees of the religion and its holy book, including the oft-repeated summons to kill or enslave the infidel, the structure of gender apartheid, the imposition of shariah, and a host of other draconian laws.

In other words, a “moderate Muslim” would have to live in a state of contradiction, and perhaps many do—as does, for example, freedom loving Tarek Fatah, Canadian author of Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, who calls himself a “hardened secular Muslim.” What exactly is a secular Muslim, whether hardened or soft? Similarly, what could a “secular Christian” conceivably be other than some sort of mythical chimera? (It is different for Jews, of course; a “secular Jew” remains a Jew because the world persists in regarding him as such. But that is another matter.) Fatah is a good man and an important voice in the ongoing debate concerning Islam, but he cannot extricate himself from a legendary infatuation or acknowledge disagreeable historical and theological facts. One cannot cherry pick the Koran or romanticize Islamic history, as so-called “moderate Muslims” are obliged to do, without falling into incoherence. As a character in Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album says, “our religion isn’t something you can test out, like trying out a suit to see if it fit! You gotta buy the whole outfit!” There is, to put it another way, no such beverage as Islam Lite. One drinks in the real thing or nothing; there is no substitute.

Bangladeshi author and former Muslim Abul Kasem, in a FrontPage Magazine interview, defines the majority of Muslims as believers “in name only.” Kasem is shockingly direct: the existence of a “moderate Muslim” is contingent upon a moderate Koran “since the life force of Islam is the Qu’ran.” But the Koran happens to be an extreme and violent document, and even if it is selectively ignored by practitioners of the faith, its fissile core can be activated at any time. For Kasem, as for the dissidents mentioned above, the term “moderate Muslim” or “secular Muslim” is an oxymoron. The use of the term “moderate Muslim,” he argues, is “truly misplaced” and muddles Western thinking in the attempt to defeat Islamic terror. I’m presuming this is an argument you too would candidly advance if the sociopolitical context were not so precarious, and if your place in Dutch society and as leader of a respectable political party permitted you to do so.

Still, you were on the money when, in a speech to the Dutch parliament, you compared Islam in Europe to a Trojan Horse. Here you were being perfectly forthright. Your metaphor was both mythologically and historically accurate. In 1529, the armies of Islam were camped before the gates of Vienna. They were beaten back. Today they are camped within the gates of Paris, the gates of Oslo, the gates of Malmo, the gates of Berlin, the gates of London, the gates of Birmingham, the gates of Brussels, the gates of Marseille, the gates of Amsterdam, and counting. In fact, as you and many of the politically aware—Bruce Bawer, Christopher Caldwell, Walter Laqueur, Bernard Lewis, the late Samuel Huntington, Melanie Phillips, Bruce Thornton, Claire Berlinski, Denis MacShane, Bat Ye’or, to name only a few—point out, Islam is now a major demographic force within the gates of Europe in its entirety. Vienna was only a temporary setback, a lost battle in a long and possibly successful war. Our ostensible sophisticates seem to have forgotten that Islamic time is not Western time.

I began this letter by assuring you that you have a far wider community of supporters than you might at times suspect. True, several conservative bien pensants and generally astute observers of the ideological world, such as Bill Kristol, Glenn Beck and Charles Krauthammer, have lately taken you to task on Fox News and elsewhere for your supposed intransigence, your explicitness and your “radical” stance vis à vis Islam, that is, your refusal to differentiate between a peaceable Islam and violent Islamism. The critical perspective adopted by these otherwise excellent writers toward the leftist collaboration with, or appeasement of, militant Islam, their awareness of the demographic menace posed by unchecked immigration, and the weaponized prose they habitually flourish would indicate they should be your allies rather than detractors.

So unfortunate a dereliction is highly problematic and, at first blush, inexplicable—unless, as a commenter to an article by Mark Steyn suggests, “perhaps the recent purchase of a substantial portion of News Corp.’s stock by a wealthy Saudi Arabian might be a factor in Krauthammer’s and Beck’s negative statements about Geert Wilders.” Diana West concurs: “this anti-Geert pundit solidarity will only delight stakeholder Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.” We have long known that Saudi money has infiltrated the media, the universities, the Hollywood illusion factory and the book publishing industry, with all the predictable consequences. But then, we also know that Kristol, Beck and Krauthammer are honorable men.

Maybe there is another explanation. Roger Simon hazards that Beck “is not particularly versed in European affairs”, which are plainly not his forte, and that Krauthammer may be subconsciously afraid that you are right, a likelihood “too depressing” to contemplate. For, Simon continues, “if Wilders is correct, and the line between Islam and Islamism is as blurred as the Dutchman posits, then we in the West are in very deep trouble indeed.” And this is a conclusion all too few of our intellectuals, “peace” constituencies, opinion shapers and power wielders, addicted to the ostrich syndrome and insulated from the mean streets of the real world, are willing to absorb. They have taken another route and are speeding down the highway to dhimmitude like Toyotas with stuck gas pedals. They would rather allow the approaching immiseration of the West at the hands of a resurgent Islam than stiffen their spines and act as they must if Western civilization is to survive. Which is why they do not want you in the game.

Nevertheless, despite such curious defections and betrayals, I think you may rest confident that you enjoy a stalwart following among those who have come to share both your fears and your salient assumptions. We monitor the court prosecution to which you have been subjected by a camarilla of judges who, as you say, “do not want to hear the truth about Islam.” As David Rusin shows in a compendious summary of “the growing deference to Islam in Europe’s courtrooms,” citing evidence of a most disturbing, if ludicrous, nature, “in the Netherlands, the bar association is leading the way to mollify Islamists.”

But there is a redeeming irony tunneling its way through these proceedings. You are in a win-win situation. A victory in court means you have been vindicated. A negative verdict also works in your favor, for a jail cell would give you an effective podium, though I doubt you would malinger there for long. It would then become glaringly obvious that your accusers are a pack of soi-disant anti-Dreyfusards, Vichy-type sellouts, cowards and hypocrites, and public demonstrations against your captors would be sure to follow. They are the ones in a self-inflicted bind, not you. Moreover, it is already common knowledge that your judges have substantially curtailed the number of expert witnesses you have called and are deliberating behind closed doors. Oddly enough, a bad day in court may translate into a good day at the polls. Indeed, according to some electoral prognostications, you may shortly find yourself the prime minister of your country.

The cake appears ready for the oven. If all goes well, the next election may actually install you in the seat of power or, failing that, position you as a power broker. You have only to keep on being yourself and, of course, you need to stay alive. You have the courage and outspokenness of your murdered fellow Amsterdammers, Pym Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, but you also have what they did not, 24/7 protection. And, to reiterate, you are not alone. A growing company of the likeminded stand behind you. One way or another, you cannot lose, at least not in the Netherlands.

So in conclusion, as the current idiom enjoins: Go for it!

Thinking about a Paris vacation this Spring?  Unknowingly, French residents and tourists are paying taxes that finance the construction of mosques and promote the ongoing Islamization of France.  The hamburger restaurant chain “Quick” recently announced that it will serve halal meat – that is to say, food which is legal for consumption by Muslims.  Animals used in preparation of halal foods must have their throats slit open without benefit of stunning or anesthesia, and the animal’s head must be facing toward Mecca during the slaughter.

 Thus, another measure of how far France’s insidious Islamization has progressed is the government’s surcharge on halal meats, and all French people must pay the tax, whether or not they eat that food.  French merchants are increasingly going halal to increase their profits by drawing in ever-growing numbers of Muslim customers, not realizing that their acquisition of wealth is directly contributing to the eventual enslavement of the nation under Sharia (Muslim law).  With thanks to Diana West’s website -  Read the entire story here in The Brussels Journal:

 ”In his weekly newsletter, available through subscription, Yves Daoudal discusses the implications of the decision by Quick, a French chain of hamburger restaurants, to serve halal meat in its restaurants. His is one of several recent articles that are focusing on the growing presence of halal foods everywhere in France, and the danger that very soon French people will be eating halal without knowing it, if that is not already the case…

…In France, the consuming of halal foods, prepared according to Muslim religious procedures, was marginal until the early 1990’s. In his book l’Islam de marché (Commercializing Islam), Patrick Haenni notes that a few decades ago, the pious Muslim had to go hundreds of kilometers to buy meats he felt were appropriate.

Today it is the opposite. Many Frenchmen have to travel far to find authentic French foods…

…Today halal is a three billion euro business in France. First, the butcher shops and ethnic grocers, then the larger multinational agribusinesses and finally the major outlets such as Carrefour, Auchan and Leclerc participated in this expansion…

…In an effort to make halal production profitable, producers are tempted to make everyone eat halal. Halal slaughterhouses must fulfill the following rules: the animal must be slit open while alive, without stunning, its head turned toward Mecca, by a certified practitioner. In order to avoid the added expense of two separate methods of slaughter (halal and “classic”) it is often easier to distribute halal meats in the “classic” market, without warning the consumer. This is widely practiced for poultry and lamb: the secular or Catholic consumer thus is financing, unknowingly and unwillingly, the spread of Islam in France…

 All of this is a direct result of the mass immigration into France by followers of Islam.   The 54 million Muslims of Europe are not assimilating into Western culture.  They are taking over and incrementally replacing its customs with Sharia. That the French are now paying taxes used to ensure their eventual servitude to Muslim masters is a warning we in The United States should heed, lest we end up in the same situation.  Bon appetit, mon ami.

I’m up out of my chair again.  DutchNews.nl has a breaking story:  The Dutch government collapsed early Saturday morning, setting up new elections for March.

The Dutch government collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning over Labour’s insistence that the Netherlands pull out of Afghanistan this year.

After two days of intensive talks and a bitter parliamentary debate, it had become increasingly clear the gulf between prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and deputy prime minister Wouter Bos was too great to bridge…

…’I have to conclude that there is no fruitful path to allow this cabinet to continue,’ Balkenende said in a short statement…

…The prime minister will now offer his government’s resignation to the queen, who is skiing in Lech, Austria.

Diana West had it first here.

This event sets up the real possibility that the outspoken Parliamentarian  (photo above) Geert Wilders, who is under criminal indictment and in trial by his own government, could become the Prime Minister of The Netherlands and his PVV Freedom Party, which advocates stopping the flood of Muslim immigration and the Islamization of The Netherlands, could come to power.

Maybe it’s not over yet in Europe.

Still, the mainstream media won't tell you about the jihad. Even the conservative media won't tell you about the jihad. It's up to free citizens to stand up now, before it's too late. That's why Pamela Geller and I have created a new organization to stand up against this silence and willful blindness that threatens our existence and renders us defenseless as our freedoms and way of life are eroded away. We are launching the Freedom Defense Initiative, a new activist group, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2010, with a conference entitled Jihad: The Political Third Rail - What They Are Not Telling You.

We're bringing in some of the leading speakers about the jihad threat in the U.S. and around the world. The main speakers are Steve Coughlin and Wafa Sultan. Steve Coughlin is the former Pentagon Islamic law specialist who was fired after pressure from Islamic infiltrators. He is making his first public appearance for us at CPAC, and has startling information about Islamic infiltration in our government. Wafa Sultan stood up for human rights against Sharia on Al-Jazeera in a debate with an Islamic cleric on a famous viral video. She is the author of a blistering indictment of Islam's denial of rights to women and non-Muslims, A God Who Hates.

Other speakers include Simon Deng, a former slave in Sudan, and a leading human rights activist against jihad and Islamic supremacism; Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who is facing "hate speech" charges in Austria for telling the truth about Islam and the Islamization of Europe; Anders Gravers of the group Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE); and Lt. Colonel Allen West: a war hero who offers a real alternative to Obama's socialism at home and appeasement abroad.

It promises to be an enlightening event, and it's certainly unique given the general media blackout on these issues.

But to hold this event, we need your help.

This conference will be held at the site of CPAC, but it is an independent event, not a CPAC event. Pamela Geller and I are holding this event at our own expense. We are paying the speakers' airfare and hotel bills, we are covering the costs of publicity - we are staging this entire event ourselves. We don't have big donors, we don't have large bankrollers. We are not a slick organization with professional fundraisers making elaborate presentations to wealthy philanthropists. All we have is a determination to get the word out about this, the gravest threat to our freedoms that this country has ever faced.

Last year, 9,000 people came to CPAC. This year it promises to be even bigger. Our event is the only one where the truth will be heard about the jihad threat. Then the videos will go up on the Internet and be a reference source to awaken people to this threat for years to come.

Please stand with us. Please help us get the word out. Please hit the "Contribute to Jihad Watch" link on the right and specify that you're contributing to the Freedom Defense Initiative's CPAC event. Or go here and contribute directly to the Freedom Defense Initiative.

It is going to take each one of us pitching in what we can in order to win this fight. It is going to take ordinary Americans who love our country and our way of life to stand up now. We are presenting truths at CPAC on which hang the very future of our nation. Please help us let these crucial voices be heard.

It’s official.  Tony Blair (pictured above as Hitler in the British paper The Daily Mail), former Prime Minister of the once-great nation of the United Kingdom, has been branded a liar and a murderer by current Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Chilcot Inquiry, and by a British national press that has lost its collective senses.  The leftist British government’s fear of Muslim mass violence as retaliation for resisting England’s ongoing Islamization is now greater than the fear of incremental surrender to the Forces of Islam, and what that surrender will eventually bring to the English people – Sharia.

Blair testified eloquently and convincingly Friday, reiterating that he believes that toppling Saddam Hussein was the correct course of action. The members of Inquiry were not of a mind to be swayed by his arguments and Chilcot himself held out two opportunities for Blair to express remorse.  Courageously, Blair stuck to his guns and refused to acquiesce.

With video included of parts of Blair’s testimony, The TimesUK Online story is here:

“Tony Blair was branded a murderer and liar last night after he ended his historic appearance before the Iraq inquiry with a blank refusal to voice regrets over toppling Saddam Hussein.

After six hours in which the Chilcot inquiry team had largely failed to breach his defences, the former Prime Minister brought trouble on himself by failing to show the contrition that his critics wanted.

Mr Blair, who gave a fluent, assured performance, refused to apologise for going to war, said that he would do the same again, and then warned that today’s leaders might have to take similar action to disarm Iran…”

This story is far from finished and it bears close watching here in America.  Is Mr. Blair headed for a War crimes trial in The Netherlands for leading The UK into an “illegal” war?  That is a specialty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to which many on the Left in the United States want to cede and surrender our national judicial authority.

This month President Obama very quietly made the offices and records of Interpol sovereign and exempt from American law enforcement by amending Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12425.  Interpol is the investigative arm of the ICC.  Why would he do that and then refuse to discuss it with reporters?

And a more troubling question arises:  If, in the worst case, Mr. Blair becomes a defendant at The Hague, what does that mean for President Bush and Vice President Cheney?  Keep your eye on this story, ladies and gentlemen.  Do not believe for a second that something like this cannot happen here.

It’s the kind of scene one might expect to see in a hard-line Sharia court in Saudi Arabia: a man facing trial for the putative “crime” of insulting Islam. But the defendant in this case is Dutch MP Geert Wilders and the ominous setting for his trial is none other than his native Netherlands. This week, Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and an outspoken critic of Islam and Islamic extremism, went on trial on politically loaded charges of inciting hatred and discrimination toward Islam. The outcome of the trial, which could yet result in jail time or a financial penalty for Wilders, will reveal just how far Europe’s multicultural enforcers are willing to go to silence free speech in order to appease the continent’s increasingly restive and radicalized Muslim populations. In his remarks from the trial, reprinted below, Wilders offers a powerful statement about the stakes involved: nothing less than freedom itself. – The Editors

*

Wilders: Mister Speaker, judges of the court,

I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.

Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.

I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.

Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands? Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.

Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.

Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:

It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.

In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.

This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech. But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be an fair trial.