California Conservative

This AP article is contradicted by Kathy Kersten article. Here’s what the AP article said:

Islamic religious law forbids the carrying of alcohol.

That’s a pretty definitive statement. It isn’t nuanced; there aren’t any qualifiers in it. Now let’s examine a paragraph from Ms. Kersten’s article:

“I was surprised and shocked when I heard it was an issue at the airport,” said Faysal Omar. “Back in Somalia, there was never any problem with taking alcohol in a taxi.” Jama Dirie said, “If a driver doesn’t pick up everyone, he should get his license canceled and get kicked out of the airport.”

According to actual Somali Muslims, carrying alcohol isn’t forbidden. According to the AP, it’s forbidden. Given the AP’s credibility problems, I think I’ll trust the Somali Muslims quoted in Kathy Kersten’s article.

The quote from the AP article is part of an article about the MAC’s hearing today. Here’s what happened:

A Metropolitan Airports Commission panel approved on Monday tougher penalties for cab drivers who refuse service to customers carrying alcohol. Airport officials say more than 70 percent of the cabbies at Twin Cities Airport are Muslim, and many refuse to take customers who have alcohol.

Islamic religious law forbids the carrying of alcohol.

Under the new penalties, a driver’s airport taxi license would be suspended for 30 days for the first offense and revoked for two years for a second offense.

Cab driver Abdinoor Dolal called the penalties punitive and asked commissioners to take a measured approach.

Commissioner Mike Landy said the commissioners have carefully weighed the issue. It passed on an unanimous voice vote.

The full commission was scheduled to vote on the matter later Monday.

It’s nice to see the MAC put its foot down. I’ve said before that giving in on this would set a bad precedent. If the MAC had given in on this, it isn’t that far-fetched to think that Muslim cabbies all over the Twin Cities would’ve tried expanding this rule to the entire Twin Cities.

The other thing that’s curious is that the original complaint included that these same taxi cab drivers wouldn’t pick up people with seeing eye dogs because dogs are considered unclean in the Muslim religion:

Officials at Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport are proposing stiffer penalties, including suspension of an airport taxi license, to Muslim cab drivers who refuse service to passengers toting alcohol or service dogs.

This International Herald Tribune article doesn’t mention anything about seeing eye dogs, either. The IHT article has some additional information that the earlier AP article didn’t include, though:

Under the old rules, a driver who refused to transport someone carrying alcohol would be told to go to the back of the taxicab line. Airport officials said that since January 2002, there have been more than 4,800 instances of drivers’ refusing to take alcohol-carrying travelers.

Commissioners said the old rules did not prevent customers from being stranded at the curb or, as reported in a few cases, dropped off before their destination after drivers learned of their alcohol on board.

It’s time that we told the MSA that they can’t push us around:

How did the MAC connect with the society? “The Minnesota Department of Human Rights recommended them to us to help us figure out how to handle this problem,” Hogan said.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, thinks he knows why the society is promoting a “no-alcohol-carry” agenda with no basis in Somali culture. “MAS is an Arab group; we Somalis are African, not Arabs,” he said. “MAS wants to polarize the world, create two camps. I think they are trying to hijack the Somali community for their Middle East agenda. They look for issues they can capitalize on, like religion, to rally the community around. The majority of Somalis oppose this, but they are vulnerable because of their social and economic situation.”

It’s worth remembering who MAS is. Here’s what Patrick Poole wrote about them:

Since it was rechartered in 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood has spread its network across the Middle East, Europe, and even America. At home in Egypt, parliamentary elections in 2005 saw the Muslim Brotherhood winning 20 percent of the available legislative seats, comprising the largest opposition party block. Its Palestinian affiliate, known to the world as HAMAS, recently gained control of the Palestinian Authority after elections secured for them 74 of 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Its Syrian branch has historically been the largest organized group opposing the Assad regime, and the organization also has affiliates in Jordan, Sudan, and Iraq. In the US, the Muslim Brotherhood is primarily represented by the Muslim American Society (MAS).

Here’s why Americans everywhere should be alarmed by that:

What Western intelligence authorities know about The Project begins with the raid of a luxurious villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001. The target of the raid was Youssef Nada, director of the Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano, who has had active association with the Muslim Brotherhood for more than 50 years and who admitted to being one of the organization’s international leaders. The Muslim Brotherhood, regarded as the oldest and one of the most important Islamist movements in the world, was founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928 and dedicated to the credo, “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Here’s what we know about “The Project”:

What makes The Project so different from the standard “Death of America! Death to Israel!” and “Establish the global caliphate!” Islamist rhetoric is that it represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the “cultural invasion” of the West. Calling for the utilization of various tactics, ranging from immigration, infiltration, surveillance, propaganda, protest, deception, political legitimacy and terrorism, The Project has served for more than two decades as the Muslim Brotherhood “master plan”. As can be seen in a number of examples throughout Europe, including the political recognition of parallel Islamist government organizations in Sweden, the recent “cartoon” jihad in Denmark, the Parisian car-burning intifada last November, and the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, the plan outlined in The Project has been overwhelmingly successful.

Based on their actions, it isn’t a reach to say that MAS’s current goal is to gain political legitimacy here in Minnesota. They’re certainly propagandists. They’re certainly trying to establish a shadow government. There’s two immediately recognizable steps that they’ve taken in establishing that shadow government:

• They’ve lobbied the the “Minneapolis Community and Technical College” “to install facilities to help Muslim students perform ritual washing before daily prayers.”
• They’ve lobbied against the penalties that the MAC unanimously voted for.

If you read all of Kathy Kersten’s article, you’ll find that those are just a couple of the things that MAS hopes to accomplish through the political process.

It’s time that we woke up to what’s happening. It’s time that we realized that the Muslim Brotherhood, through its American proxy MAS, is trying to implement “The Project.”

Technorati Tags: Metropolitan Airport Commission, MAS, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Muslim Caliphate, Terrorism, Politics, The Project, Sharia Law, Katherine Kersten

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Activism, Author: Gary Gross, CAIR, Europe, Middle East, Subversives, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.