That is the gist of the good part according to Arab-American observers, but his vague policy prescriptions for foreign policy relating to Arabs and Israel was too vague to get the full-throated support of Arab activists.
Biden’s ‘partnership plan’ receives mixed response from Arab-Americans
The US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Saturday released a policy plan directed at Arab-Americans that encompasses a wide range of domestic and foreign policy pledges in order to win the community’s support.
The plan had a strong focus on civil and human rights, promising to combat discrimination and restore the country’s values as “a nation of immigrants”.
“Anti-Arab bigotry has been used in attempts to exclude, silence, and marginalise an entire community, and Biden believes it must be rejected whenever it surfaces,” the plan read, adding that Arab-Americans would be included across a future Biden administration.
Could we see Ms. Sarsour in a Biden administration?
Biden’s extensive range of domestic policy proposals received high praise from Arab-Americans, many of whom were staunch supporters of Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary race.
The first pledge included the immediate rescindment of the so-called Muslim ban and the “immoral” family separation policy, as well as increasing the annual intake of refugees to 125,000.
I reported earlier at Refugee Resettlement Watch that Joe Biden has pledged to increase refugee flow to surpass anything his former boss ever managed to do.
The New Arab continues….
A key emphasis of Biden’s plan included combatting discrimination experienced by Arab-Americans in relation to policing, surveillance and counter-terrorism programmes.
[….]
It also pledged to protect the community from the rising threat of far-right violence and prioritise prosecution and thorough documentation of hate crimes.
Oopsy! But when he talks in vague terms about the Israel-Palestine issue, Arabs are not so happy.
Omar Shakir, Israel-Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, tweeted: “How hard is it to say equal rights? So long as Joe Biden & Kamala Harris [won’t] say that Palestinians deserve same basic rights as all other [people], no-one should be under illusion that they’ll change decades-long ugly status quo. They’re out of touch [with] their party & reality on ground.”
I know it is an understatement, but this election matters like no other.
And, let me ask at the outset, why are so many of you pushing for schools to re-open? If you are truly a conservative, get your kids the hell out of there and use this opportunity (the COVID panic) to launch your own homeschool!
Sarsour can’t wait to pressure a Biden administration!
Before I give you a few snips about what the Dems’ presidential candidate Joe Biden said, perhaps the last few lines of the story are most telling.
Here is what Emgage Action conference attendee Linda Sarsour said of Biden according to The Christian Post:
“I choose Biden. But I choose him as my opponent in the White House,” Sarsour added. “I want him to defeat Trump so we can mobilize our movements to hold him accountable and push him to do and be better. We can’t do that with Trump.”
Joe Biden wants Islam taught more in schools, decries ‘rise in Islamophobia’
Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden said Monday that he wants schools in the U.S. to teach more about Islam and claimed that there is an “unconscionable rise in Islamophobia” under the Trump administration.
“I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith,” Biden, a Catholic, said during his video remarks played at the “Million Muslim Votes” summit organized by the Muslim American political action committee Emgage Action.
“I wish we talked about all the great confessional faiths. [Islam is] one of the great confessional faiths. What people don’t realize is … we all come from the same root here, in terms of our fundamental basic beliefs. I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity for being engaged, for committing to action this November.”
Emgage Action boasts of being the “political home for Muslim Americans” and endorsed Biden in April after initial endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the Democratic presidential primary.
“Donald Trump has fanned the flames of hate in this country, across the board, through his words, his policies, his appointments, his deeds and he continues to fan those flames,” the 77-year-old Biden, who served as vice president under former President Barack Obama, said. “Under this administration, we have seen an unconscionable rise in Islamophobia, including kids being bullied at school and hate crimes in our communities.”
[….]
Despite calling out administration officials he accused of being Islamophobic, Biden mentioned nothing in his speech about confronting the presence of radical Islamic extremist groups that are responsible for the killing of thousands around the world.
Biden praised Emgage Action for its effort in getting 1 million Muslim voters to show up to vote in November.
[….]
He went on to say that “this is the most important election in modern American history.”
[….]
Biden vowed to “end the Muslim ban on day one.” Biden also vowed to work with Congress to pass hate crime legislation and legislation to end racial and religious profiling by federal law enforcement agencies.
[….]
Biden’s comments on wanting to see more Islam taught in public schools come as many public school districts around the country already include units on Islam in high school and, in some cases, middle school social studies class.
[….]
“Biden has a lot of work to do to win the hearts of young Muslim Americans who were core to Bernie’s campaign,” Sarsour wrote in a Twitter thread. “They are anti-war, pro-Palestinian, pro-Abolition of ICE & support defunding of police. They care aboutRohingya, Uighur Muslims, Kashmir, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen & Syria.”
“I choose Biden. But I choose him as my opponent in the White House,” Sarsour added. “I want him to defeat Trump so we can mobilize our movements to hold him accountable and push him to do and be better. We can’t do that with Trump.”
There is much more, including the fact that Rep. Ilhan Omar was there (not a surprise).
Since I had previously devoted some attention to immigrant-pushing Islamic cleric Imam Omar Suleiman this post at Islamist Watchby Sam Westrop jumped out at me this morning as I did my usual perusal of the news looking for items that I think would interest you.
Westrop points out that the Salafistshave not needed to change (or pretend to change) in Europe because the Muslim population there is high enough to push their ‘purist’ agenda without ‘modifying’ their hardcore beliefs, but in the US the population is not high enough (yet!) so they need the Leftwingers, the Progressive Dems, to essentially hide behind.
One of those clever pretenders is Suleiman. I wrote about him working with Church World Service and CAIR in March of 2018 to protest Trump’s refugee slowdown. See here.
Flexible Salafis
The Growing Political Power of ‘Woke,’ Modernist Islamism
Imam Omar Suleiman rarely talks about da’wah – the Islamic duty of proselytization. He never talks about Islamist designs for an Islamic state. Instead, America’s leading Islamic cleric speaks about broad political change, employing the language and ideas of progressivism.
In fact, Suleiman, president of the Yaqeen Institute, is not just a preacher; he is an activist, found often in front of TV cameras, speaking before Congress, or being arrested on Capitol Hill at protests against the Trump administration’s policies.
His success is surprising. Suleiman is one of a number of popular clerics who emerged from a network centered around the AlMaghrib Institute, a Salafi-founded organization dedicated to a hardline strain of Islam. Its own extremism is incontrovertible. Founder Muhammad Alshareef once wrote a paper titled “Why the Jews Were Cursed,” in which he claims Jews control the media and murder prophets. Other leading Almaghrib clerics include Abdullah Hakim Quick, who calls for the killing of homosexuals and urges God to “purify” Al-Aqsa from the “filth of the Yahud [Jews],” and “clean Afghanistan and Iraq” from the “filth of the Kafiroun [unbelievers].”
Suleiman at the southern border in December 2018
Suleiman’s rhetoric has at times been just as extreme. Around 2014, he was busy beseeching the ummah to rise up and act against the forces that threatened Islam. He praised a newer generation of “awakened” Muslim youth, and lauded the piety and commitment of the people of Gaza. And he criticized those who were “too lazy” to boycott the “Zionist regime,” claiming such activism by a committed few had already cost the Israelis over 8 billion dollars.
But as his fame grew, his tactics changed. Whereas once Suleiman excused the killing of adulterers and denounced homosexuality as a “repugnant shameless sin,” today he is an ardent advocate for political alliances with the progressive Left, including “LGBT” movements. In lectures and quasi-academic essays, Suleiman and Yaqeen now promote Islam as a force for “social justice.”
Instead of talking just about refugees from Gaza or Syria, Suleiman is today also found at the border with Mexico – equipped with journalists and their cameras – to embrace non-Muslim emigrants and loudly protest the Trump administration’s policies.
And rather than remain just a regular fixture on the Islamist conference circuit, Suleiman today finds himself introduced to Congress by Nancy Pelosi, and given a platform at Bernie Sanders’ campaign rallies, to talk about the “promise of America … an America that resists the forces of bigotry … the forces of greed … that distract us from corrupt billionaires.”
Omar Suleiman is both the Left’s talking-point and its talking-head.
He is no longer issuing parochial calls for an awakened Muslim youth, but he has become part of a broader hard Left movement that claims to be building a utopia for all.
When I saw the story yesterday I realized I know this guy!
I wrote about him over a year ago being arrested with CAIR’s Nihad Awad and Linda Sarsour at a Capitol Hill demonstration sponsored by our old pals at the refugee contractorChurch World Service(which I happened to write about yesterday before I saw the hubbub about Omar Suleiman!).
Three main actors parked outside Speaker Ryan’s office: top left Omar Suleiman, Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). and Linda Sarsour, bottom left. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/03/07/linda-sarsour-cairs-top-gun-nihad-awad-and-imam-suleiman-among-those-arrested-on-capitol-hill-this-week/
Sarsour spoke in Hillsborough on Sunday. https://chapelboro.com/news/news-around-town/civil-rights-organizer-linda-sarsour-speaking-in-hillsborough-sunday
What is going on in North Carolina? I often hear people from the Northeast say they are heading down to live/retire in the Carolinas to get away from high taxes and liberal government policies, but I would think really long and hard about choosing North Carolina. Orange County, NC
The political Leftwing is working day and night, year after year, to change North Carolina (by changing the people!). When I was writing at Refugee Resettlement Watch I was puzzled by the push for more refugees to be placed there and I even noted that some world famous Islamic terrorists like KSM went to college in the Tar Heel State.
As I noted the other day, North Carolina, even under Donald Trump, is the fifth most ‘welcoming’ refugee resettlement state in the nation. Now to the news about the Sarsour event, put on by the taxpayer-funded ‘Human Relations Commission’…… Continue reading “North Carolina County Taxpayers Spent $5000 to Hear Linda Sarsour Vent”→
“I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith,” Biden, a Catholic, said during his video remarks played at the “Million Muslim Votes” summit organized by the Muslim American political action committee Emgage Action.
