CAIR’s Islamists Eject Breitbart From Their Anti-Carson Press Conference

Islamic advocates ejected a Breitbart News reporter from a Sept. 21 news conference in Washington D.C. The Council on American-Islamic Relations was hosting the event to complain about Dr. Ben Carson’s criticism of Islamic intolerance.

Ibrahim Hooper, an American convert to the 1,200 year-old religion, also threatened to eject the Breitbart reporter from any future conferences, and admitted in front of multiple TV cameras that he had ejected the reporter from a prior press conference.

Speakers at the event included CAIR’s co-founder Nihad Awad and several others. “We believe in a conversation,” Awad said. “What unites us as Americans is…. our Constitution,” he claimed.

At the end of the statements, Awad’s spokesman announced that Breitbart’s reporter would not be allowed to ask questions during the short question and answer period.

Immediately after the question and answer session, Hooper intervened again to stop a conversation about Islam between Breitbart News and one of the speakers.

“He is just one of the hate-mongers,” Hooper said about the Breitbart reporter. The CAIR speaker said he wanted to continue the conversation, but Hooper insisted that the reporter be forced out from the event. “Could you take it outside? We have you to leave. We have to ask him to leave. We have asked him to leave in previous news conferences, so we just ask you to leave, please,” Hooper said.

To clarify: “Yes, I’m throwing you out,” Hooper added.

Breitbart News asked Hooper if he would block this reporter from entering a future press event. “If I identify you before you come in, I won’t let you come in,” Hooper replied. “It is as simple as that… it is a private event and we don’t allow in hate-mongers like you,” he added, underlining his legal right to do something widely regarded as unethical, defensive and self-damaging.

Awad arranged the press conference to criticize the Sept. 20 statement by GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson that: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.” One of Carson’s aides later told CNN that “he was thinking like someone who loves America first, who wants to protect America.” The aide, Armstrong Williams, said that “he understands that there are tenets of Islam that hates Jews, that kills homosexuals, will kill Muslims, do not advocate belief and value systems that made America into the country that it is today.”

Awad criticized Carson’s policy preferences as a violation of the Constitution. “We believe his views are inconsistent with the American Constitution,” said Awad, who has not been allowed to meet with FBI officials since the discovery of CAIR’s involvement in an extensive Islamist criminal operation in Texas.

Awad’s intellectual error is understandable. Islamic ideology throughout the Arab world blends mosque and state, and views any criticism of Islam’s status or commandments as a violation of the fundamental law of the state. That’s not true in the United States, where morality and religion are kept distinct from law, and where politicians are expected to praise and criticize popular and unpopular ideas that are shielded by the Constitution from government hostility.

Under questioning from reporters, Awad also insisted that Islam does separate religion from the state. “Within Islam, there is separation of state and religion” he claimed. In fact there are no or few Islamic states where Islam is not part of the state, or where other religions have equal rights to Islam.

The Jordanian-born Awad also suggested that Carson’s policy preference is racist. That’s another categorical error because Islam is an ideology and a religion, not a racial group. In English, it is linguistically impossible to be racist towards an idea, especially an idea that deems itself to be non-racial. However, English is not Awad’s first language, and Islamic culture treats painful criticism as slander that can be punished, regardless of truth.

Awad also tried to argue that Carson is treating all Muslims as a uniform bloc. However there’s no evidence that Carson cannot tell the difference between the ideas of Islam and the actions of individuals Muslims, who vary in their orthodoxy and piety. Again, the error is likely tied to Awad’s Islamic ideology, which does regard all Muslims as a worldwide bloc, called the “ummah.”

Hooper’s exclusion of the press from the press conference also reflects the Islamists’ theological contempt for ideas and people outside Islam. For example, the Koran says that Christians and polytheists are “the worst of creatures.”

That Koranic support for hate is especially powerful because of the Koran’s all-encompassing impact on Arab culture. Unlike the Christians’ Bible, which consists of questionable witness accounts of divine statements, such as “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God,” Muslims say the Koran is a perfect copy of Allah’s voluminous set of unappealable commandments. The Bible’s reliance on conflicting eyewitnesses has allowed Christianity to blend faith, reason, and debate, so allowing it to fundamentally change the world.

The supremacist demands from Islamists are also funded on Koranic commands, which repeatedly says that non-Muslims should be fought until they accept a humiliating status in Islamic societies. “Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah [a special tax] willingly while they are humbled.”

Five former employees of CAIR who have been jailed or expelled were not able to attend the Sept. 21 press event.

These days, Islamist are growing increasingly hostile to criticism as new evidence contradicts the Muslims’ explanation for their ideology, in just the same way that Christians’ world-view is being challenged by secular critics.

Islamists say Islam was delivered to mankind in the early 600s  by Allah’s last prophet, dubbed Mohammad. But the archeological evidence shows that Islam gradually developed in the 700s and 800s, likely as an Arab rival to the trinitarian Christianity that bolstered the political legitimacy of the nearby Byzantine empire.  The Arabs’ Islamic religion rejects the Byzantine and Catholic vision of a trinity — Father, Son and the Holy Spirit — and insists on the “oneness” of their deity, dubbed “Allah,” who has supposedly set Arabs as the chosen people over the Jews and Christians. That emphasis on “oneness” explains why the symbol adopted by the ultra-orthodox Islamic State group is a single raised finger to the modern world.

The linguistic evidence also suggests that Muhammad did not exist, because the origin of the name was actually a title, akin to “leader.”

Nonetheless, the Arabs’ new religion worked to strengthen their power. Islamic armies finally captured Byzantium in 1453, although with the aid of cannons built by Bulgarian mercenaries. However, by then the Arab kingdoms had long been captured by Islamicized Turks, who converted to Islam after they migrated in from central Asia.