CAIR in the Classroom

CAIR is fast becoming a contributor to our children’s public school education.  Concerned parents of students in Houston’s Friendswood Junior High exposed an Islamic presentation during classroom time given by representatives of the Council on American Islamic Relations.   The WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh  exposing CAIR’s agenda in this Texas public middle school follows this commentary.  First let’s look at CAIR’s participation in a Brooklyn, New York public school.

CAIR’s active participation as an educating organization working with the Khalil Gibran International Academy, an Arabic language and Arabic culture public school is documented in KGIA’s Executive Summary which states the American Muslim Association of Lawyers (AMAL) offers internships, and helps with a course in human rights (in 6th grade…) (P. 7, p. 18). The AMAL website appears to be inactive (http://www.theamal.org/index.shtml) but the group (or at least their website) was founded by Omar Mohammedi, President of the New York Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and lawyer for the infamous “6 imams” who have threatened to sue airline personnel and passengers for “profiling.” CAIR has been named in the Holy Land Terror-financing trial as an unindicted co-conspirator.

 Frontpage contributes some background to CAIR’s history- “CAIR’s founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, was the IAP’s [Islamic Association of Palestine] public relations director with a long history of extremism. Awad openly praised Iran’s notorious Ayatollah Khomeini. He blasted the trial and conviction of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers – against whom the evidence of guilt was overwhelming – as “a travesty of justice.” At a 1994 Barry University forum, he candidly stated, “I am in support of the Hamas movement.”

“CAIR has been the mouthpiece of some of the vilest anti-Semitism imaginable. For example, the organization co-sponsored a 1998 Brooklyn College rally at which a militant Egyptian Islamist led the attendees in chanting, “No to the Jews, descendents of the apes.” Hussam Ayloush, who heads CAIR’s Los Angeles office, contemptuously refers to Israelis as “Zionazis.” [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5E5F4FCA-2B20-4393-917C-506AC4C756F7] 

 

Consider the possibilities regarding what would be taught in a Khalil Gibran International Academy classroom.  The KGIA Executive Summary. reveals a day in the life of an imaginary student in the school. “Although KGIA offers a variety of enrichment electives in the arts, sports, and technology beginning at 3:30, Fatin has chosen an elective on Human Rights. This class is being co-taught by one of the school’s full-time teachers along with an Arab-American lawyer. She can’t wait until the end of the semester, when one of the collaborating organizations, the American Muslim Association of Lawyers, will offer students internship opportunities at their members’ law offices for a semester.

 

 An April 2008 Weekly Standard article, “CAIR vs. the NYPD The Wahhabi lobby attacks” by Stephen Schwartz documents that Almontaser, the former Principal-designate and architect of the Khalil Gibran International Academy,  has once again joined forces with CAIR and Omar Mohammadi, CAIR’s NY President, to demand that the NYPD end its distribution of the report, “Radicalization in the West: The Home-Grown Threat” prepared by Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt of the NYPD Intelligence Division to other jurisdictions’ law enforcement agencies.

“This month, the Wahhabi lobby plans to drop its manifesto of grievances on Commissioner Kelly, on April 17. In minutes of a meeting held in New York on March 3, officials of CAIR present included Faiza Ali, Aliya Latif, and Omar Mohammadi, joined by Islamist agitator Syed Z. Sayeed, religious adviser to the Saudi-backed Muslim Students Association at Columbia University. They noted that the NYPD had asked for a detailed reply to the report. The participants at the March 3 get-together also observed that while they would prepare such a response, CAIR itself has financed and is working on a more thorough text designated its “long-term analysis/alternative model of radicalization.”

 

Perhaps the most remarkable detail about the March 3 conclave was the leading role taken in it by Debbie Almontaser, a New York resident who last attracted attention as the front-person for a middle-and-high magnet school to be established in New York, the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA). [Emphasis added] KGIA was intended as a special institution emphasizing an Arabic language curriculum and related studies, but its proponents were accused of trying to establish an “intifada academy.” Nevertheless, when Almontaser came under scrutiny as the project head she was defended by many in New York as a faultless moderate. Her involvement in CAIR’s counter-attack on the NYPD demonstrates otherwise: her assignment in dealing with NYPD was to organize an online discussion group for input into the Community Statement.

 

Such would not be a minor responsibility, and shows that she enjoyed the full confidence of the CAIR commissars. Debbie Almontaser appears to be a classic “stealth Islamist,” and KGIA looks like just the kind of radicalizing effort it was said to be by its critics. Almontaser resigned from her position as head of KGIA last August, but now claims she was forced out, and is pursuing a legal complaint to regain her place at the school. KGIA has been promised housing in an elementary school in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, but its future is little more certain than that of Almontaser’s own career.”  [www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/968cekhc.asp]

In a recent Frontpage article by Phil Orenstein, “Almontaser has expressed virulent blame America attitudes in the past making statements in interviews such as: “I have realized that our foreign policy is racist; in the ‘war against terror’ people of color are the target….the terrorist attacks have been triggered by the way the USA breaks its promises with countries across the world, especially in the Middle East.”

[http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=E0DE76AC-4424-4C76-8E88-2AEA34FF77D9]

 

Consider also a 2004 article in the American Thinker, “Your children may learn that Muslims discovered America”, describing CAIR’s involvement with stacking the deck in your child’s education as they stack American public library shelves with: “……the placement of propaganda in our schools by Muslim extremist groups. As the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation pointed out in a report issued this week titled, “The Stealth Curriculum:Manipulating America’s History Teachers” these efforts are intended “to use America’s public school classrooms to shape the minds of tomorrow’s citizens by manipulating what today’s teachers introducing into the lessons of today’s children”.

The article goes on to specify CAIR’s deliberate involvement:

The Council  on American—Islamic Relations, some of whose members have been “outed” as terror supporters, has an active program to supply these this type of propaganda to libraries across the nation. Naturally, like schools, the librarians are more than happy to accept inexpensive, or free, material to fill their shelves. Yet these same books and audio—visual material are filling our children’s minds with lies that are tantamount to propaganda that teach hate. Efforts should be made by local activists and PTA or PTO members to scrutinize the reading lists at our “educational” institutions. http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/04/your_children_may_learn_that_m.html

 

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS

Texas children roped into Islamic training

Class by CAIR teaches: ‘There is one god, Allah’

By Bob Unruh, News Editor, WorldNetDaily,

30 May 2008
 

 

Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe’s actions.

Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it “unacceptable.”

“The failure of the principal of Friendswood Junior High to respect simple procedures requiring parental notification for such a potentially controversial subject, to not only approve but participate personally in a religious indoctrination session led by representatives of a group with well-known links to terrorist organizations and her cavalier response when confronted, raises serious questions about her fitness to serve in that role,” the pastors’ organization said.

According to a parent, whose name was withheld, the children were given the Islamic indoctrination during time that was supposed to be used for a physical

education class.

“I am simply trying to get the word out to those whose kids may not have told them about an Islamic presentation that all kids were required to attend,” wrote the parent, who was working to assemble protests to the school board.

WND previously has reported how public school textbooks being used across the nation have begun promoting Islam, teaching even the religious doctrines.

WND also has reported on several other school situations in which Islam has been taught as a required subject, and when administrators have defended those decisions.

In the Texas case, a school e-mail to parents provided only a half-hearted acknowledgement that such mandatory religious indoctrination might not have been the best decision.

“In hindsight, a note should have been sent home to parents indicating the purpose and content of the presentation in time for parents to contact me with questions or concerns or requests to exempt their child,” the school note from Lowe said. “This will be our practice in the future, should we ever have another presentation of a similar nature.”

School officials also said the “Islamic Awareness” presentation was “to increase understanding of the Islamic culture in response to racially motivated comments that have been made to students on campus.”

The pastors said in a statement: “According to students who were forced to attend these sessions, these Islamic evangelists taught them:

• Adam, Noah and Jesus  are prophets
  
• There is one god, his name is Allah
• The 5 Pillars of Islam
  
• How to pray five times a day
  
• Islamic religious garb”

The pastors noted that the principal’s claim there were “comments” to students on campus was unverified. Nor does that excuse or justify “this infringement upon the religious beliefs of students and parents of the community nor the violation of school policy and possibly state and/or federal law,” they said.

“We do not believe that this unapproved action by Principal Robin Lowe represents the school district and certainly not the majority of students or parents in the Friendswood community. Our commitment is to support all appropriate administrative, legal and political remedies to assure that this will not happen again and these Islamic activist organizations are kept out of our schools,” the pastors said.

The parent reported the presentation was 30-40 minutes long and handled by two Muslim women from CAIR’s Houston office. CAIR, as WND has reported, is spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Among the convicted CAIR staffers are former communications specialist Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges he trained in Virginia for holy war against the U.S. and sent several members to Pakistan to join a Kashmiri terrorist group with reported ties to al-Qaida; and Bassem Khafagi, who was arrested in January 2003 while serving as CAIR’s director of community relations and convicted on fraud and terrorism charges in connection with a probe of the Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization suspected of aiding Saudi sheiks tied to Osama bin Laden. In October 2006, Ghassan Elashi, a member of the founding board of directors of the Texas branch of CAIR, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for financial ties to a high-ranking terrorist.

The parent reported that Lowe told students her sister, niece and nephew were Muslim.

But the parent complained the Muslims “were given full attention of our kids, during academic school time, to present their religious beliefs … This was put right at the end of the school year … which will most likely prevent a Christian response.”

There also was no parental notification and students were required to attend.

“The kids did not even know they were having an assembly or what topic it pertained to until they entered the gym,” the parent wrote. “I send my kids to school for academics … I teach them religion at home.”

[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65659] 

Eurabia and Amerabia Equals Islamic Caliphate

Germany is planning to teach Islamic religious classes in their public schools. The purpose is to protect children from informal religious classes run by “hate preachers”. The real question is, “Why do Western countries allow “hate preachers” to teach in any school, public or private, in the first place?”. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to do and say whatever one feels. Freedom without responsibility and accountability is chaos. The West’s desire for inclusiveness and equality has enabled Islamists to make inroads into a society whose values are diametrically opposed to Islam. Islamic extremists have been clear in their intentions to impose Shar’ia law in their host countries. How will they do this?

“I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t
like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future…But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that.  I am going to do that through education.”

Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper, in a 1993 statement regarding the use of the American educational system as a means to preference and impose Shari’a law in the U.S., highlights the efforts of Islamic radicals to win the hearts and minds of Americans.

EuroNews 15 March 2008

German state schools to teach Islam

Germany’s official Islam Conference, meeting for the third time, has agreed to allow state schools to introduce Islamic religious classes in German. The government-sponsored conference aims to promote better integration for the 3.4 million Muslims living in Germany.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says the idea is to deter parents from sending children to informal religious lessons run by teachers who have not been vetted by the state and end the influence of what he called “hate preachers”.

Muslim spokesperson Bekir Alboga said it is the realisation of something parents have long wished-for: “We are very happy. Since 1980 Germany’s Muslims have been demanding Islamic religious classes. Now we are delighted that the Interior Minister has ruled in favour of them”.

The problem of an acute lack of teachers means it will take many years for full implementation, but the result should eventually be Islam on the curriculum, taught in German, by teachers trained in Germany.
[http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=475096&lng=1]

 

New York City Parents On Collision Course Again With Dept. Of Education Over Khalil Gibran International Academy Move

New York City Parents On Collision Course Again With Dept. Of Education Over Khalil Gibran International Academy Move By Sara Springer, special to PipeLineNews.org February 29, 2008 – Brooklyn, NY – PipeLineNews.org – This week the NYC Department of Education informed the Khalil Gibran International Academy’s PTA that the school would be relocated for the September 2008 school year. Yet with all the planning, the intended target for KGIA, PS 287 in Fort Green, doesn’t have the required space and the proposed move is running into a firestorm of resistance from parents who feel their school is an inappropriate choice for the controversial Arabic school which has been called a madrassah. In an effort to quell the growing dissent, on the evening of February 27, Garth Harries, DOE Officer of Portfolio Development, came to PS 287 where he faced an angry gathering of parents, outraged that their school had been chosen with little consultation. As has been the case since the inception of KGIA, the DOE has been a model of non-transparency. That stonewalling continues, for example on February 4, the PTA requested a copy of KGIA’s curriculum, yet nearly a month later nothing has been forwarded. A parent from the school told this reporter that she attempted to visit KGIA today, stating she “was poorly received,” and had not been allowed to enter. At the meeting she rose, chiding Harries, “The school is so secretive, how can you ask us to have a school here if we don’t know what’s going on?” Indicative of the bad blood between parents and the DOE, another demanded, “How can we trust you when you lied to us about the high school [The School for Law and Justice] being here for one year?” This in reference to a promise by DOE that the high school [now in its fourth year] was to be moved after the first school year. With the prospect of normalcy returning to PS 287 now dashed by the announcement of the KGIA move, parents and school officials fear that enrollment will decrease further because of the negative publicity surrounding KGIA. If the move goes forward, once again pre-k, kindergarten, and elementary age children will be forced to mix with high school students. This is a potentially unhealthy situation which caused one parent to state, “It’s not safe to be with high school kids. They’re out of control. We can’t bring kids into the playground.” The President of another school’s PTA acknowledged the problem, of co-mingling children of such diverse ages, observing, “Older kids beat up younger kids.” Harries shrugged the objection off, noting that that this is happening all around the city. Despite statements to the contrary made by his aides, Harries told the gathering that the decision to move wasn’t final, thus contradicting a statement by DOE representative, Gabrielle Ferghetti, who earlier had stated that the move is a “done deal.” As the PTA president explained, “She came to let us know. She didn’t answer my questions. It was a courtesy call.” Harries apologized, responding, “That young lady works for me. That’s not what she told me she said.” The question of veracity always looms when dealing with the DOE and KGIA; are they capable of telling the truth? Another perspective was expressed by a parent who noted the frustration of many as she accused Haries and the DOE of favoritism, “Are you here to help all schools or are you here to focus on a particular race, religion, and community? You’re focused on the success of KGIA. You are not concerned with the success of our school.” One got the impression that the opposition within PS 287 against KGIA’s intrusion is rising, led by a savvy and knowledgeable group of parents who let the DOE know that their community school and children would no longer be made a pawn in Chancellor Klein’s divisive policy of forced multiculturalism. As the evening concluded a defiant spirit was in the air, with one parent challenging Harries, “Tell Chancellor Klein, don’t send messages through you. He’s not doing us a favor [by sending you]. Go back and tell the Chancellor the answer is no, no, no. We want him here and we want Mayor Bloomberg here. Tell the Chancellor you don’t mix Church and State.” Another parent added, “We as parents have the right to have what we want for our children. They can only take what we allow them to take.” ©1999-2008 Sara Springer, PipeLineNews.org LLC, all rights reserved.  [http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=kgia2.29.08%2Ehtm]

Canada update: Terror suspect stopped from teaching

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Terror suspect barred from teaching at his Islamic school

Jaballah Ruling; Authorities seeking to deport man linked to Al-Jihad

Stewart Bell,  National Post  Published: Wednesday, January 09, 2008

TORONTO – A Federal Court judge has refused to allow an Egyptian man linked to the deadly 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to teach at the Toronto Islamic school he founded.The judge also prohibited Mahmoud Jaballah, believed to be a member of the Egyptian Al-Jihad terrorist group, from holding Arabic and Koranic classes in the Toronto home where he is under house arrest.Immigration authorities are attempting to deport Mr. Jaballah because of his involvement in terrorism. He was released from detention last year under strict conditions but had asked the court to let him return to teaching children at the Um Al Qura School.

The school has 50 students and is approved by the Ontario Ministry of Education. The school’s Internet site says students are taught Arabic, English “Grammer” [sic], “Frinch” [sic], Math, “Sience” [sic], “Histories” [sic], “Geographies” [sic], Religion and Sports.

But Judge Carolyn Layden-Stevenson wrote in her ruling that Mr. Jaballah remained a threat to Canada’s national security and she was not prepared to change his conditions of release to allow him to teach.

“It is my view that stringent monitoring of Mr. Jaballah and his movements is essential to neutralize the threat that he poses to national security. I am not persuaded that the conditions should be altered to accommodate his request to teach because I find that his actions could not be effectively monitored,” she wrote.

Mr. Jaballah arrived in Canada in 1996 after working in Pakistan for a Saudi relief group linked to Osama

bin Laden. A Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigation determined he was active in Al-Jihad, the Egyptian wing of al-Qaeda.

The Federal Court upheld the government’s case against him in 2006, saying there was evidence he was a “communications link” in bombings in East Africa that killed more than 200 people. But the judge also said deporting him to Egypt would violate his rights because he might be tortured.

While she would not allow Mr. Jaballah to teach, Justice Layden-Stevenson did allow him to have five, five-hour outings per week, up from the three, four-hour outings he was previously allowed. And she approved an Internet connection in the home but forbade Mr. Jaballah from using it.

Meanwhile, in a separate ruling, the Federal Court also allowed another suspected Islamist terrorist under house arrest in Toronto, Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub, to have an Internet connection in his home as long as Mr. Mahjoub did not use it and the family consented to disclosure of the Web sites and e-mail addresses accessed from their computers.

The two are among six foreign nationals the government is attempting to deport using national security certificates.

The Supreme Court of Canada struck down parts of the security certificate law last Feb. 23, but gave Ottawa one year to fix the flaws. The Conservatives have introduced the necessary legislation but it has not yet been passed by Parliament.

sbell@nationalpost.com