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U.S. Muslims Blame Pro-Israelis For Anti-Muslim Raids
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U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
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By Steve Smith, IOL Correspondent
WASHINGTON, March 25 (IslamOnline) – A celebrated U.S. Nazi hunter and staunch pro-Israel lobbyist, John Loftus, is behind recent raids on Muslims homes and businesses in the U.S., according to Muslim American leaders and press reports.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that John Loftus, a former federal
prosecutor and current president for the St. Petersburg Holocaust Museum in
Florida, filed a civil suit in the state court urging the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and other U.S. law enforcement authorities to clamp down on
Muslim institutions for possible links to terrorist groups.
The complaint by the pro-Israel lobbyist alleged that some Muslim
institutions and individuals conspired against the United States with
the Saudi government and funneled money into terrorist groups under the
guise of charity.
The report conforms with views expressed by Muslim leaders last week
that self-styled Middle East “experts” like Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson
were possibly behind the raids against some of the country's most respected
Islamic instituions.
But Muslims expectations were yet again proven correct that the pro-Israel
lobby in the U.S. was behind creating a rift between American Muslim and
the Bush administration through feeding the information-thirsty authorities
with distorted information about Muslims in the U.S.
Loftus remains a controversial figure with extremist views that
despite all of the U.S. support to the Jewish state, America has in fact “sold
Israel out”. He argues that the U.S. has bureaucrats who see America’s national
interest in getting a cheap supply of oil.
Since the Arabs have it and Israel does not, Loftus argues, U.S. administrations have sold Israel out. He claims that Washington has in fact
e worked against Israel in every war.
He claims that not only did the United States sell Israeli secrets to the
Arabs in the 1956 and 1967 wars, but in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, in
order to punish Israel for its intransigence in not bowing to the then
Secreteary of State Henry Kissinger's peace policies and to keep oil flowing.
"Kissinger asked the Secretary of Defense to hold off sending Israel aid for seven days," by which time, he thought, Israel would agree to any suggestion.
Israel was saved, Loftus said, by General Alexander Haig, who not only
warned of the impending attack as soon as he learned of it, but
secretly shipped Israel a highly effective anti-tank missile.
It was not clear how Loftus managed to push his recent agenda on the
latest attacks on Northern Virgina but Muslim Americans say he was not acting
alone.
But the Washington Post reported that federal agents who searched 16
homes and offices in Northern Virginia last week were in fact focusing on “a
tightly interconnected, complicated and very private financial empire.”
The newspaper said that investigators were watching this “empire” for
the past seven years. While the latest probe of these entities began years
ago, U.S. officials say it heated up after the September 11 terrorist
attacks.
But sources told the Post that they had to plan their raids in a hurry
starting two weeks ago "because of a telephone call from a lawyer in
Florida, John Loftus."
Loftus, a former Nazi hunter for the Justice Department and more
recently a lawyer for U.S. intelligence agency whistleblowers, reportedly
contacted government officials March 11, saying he was about to file a lawsuit in
Florida against Sami Al-Arian, a Muslim professor at University of South
Florida, that would lay out the ties among him and Saudi charity interests.
The paper said Customs and Treasury officials hustled to prepare their
raids for March 20, the day that Loftus filed his lawsuit claiming various
frauds by Al-Arian, Loftus and government officials said. "There was no
coincidence," Loftus said.
Muslim, Arabs leaders said this example shows how effortlessly the
government here can be pushed against Muslims, Arabs, and how easily
the Bush-administration has come to forsake America's long traditions of
civil rights and freedoms.
“This really shows you how our government (U.S. government) can be so
easily driven by anti-Muslim individuals and organizations that have
anti-Muslim agenda,” said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director with The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based Muslim advocacy group. “We are disturbed by the news.”
Hooper said this example also showed that the government may not be
actually working for the interest of Americans or out of concerns for security
but by lobby efforts of anti-Muslim groups. “It is not just one individual,”
Hooper said. “There is an industry behind individuals like that who try to
restrict Muslim outreach to the government and to exercise their rights.”
Hooper pointed a finger at pro-Israel groups for the anti-Muslim feeling
sweeping the United States. He said that his group, one of the largest
Muslim organizations, was routinely barred from attending civil rights
movements because of behind-the-scene efforts by the pro-Israel Jewish
group, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
“It happened to us at least five times since September 11,” Hooper said
adding that CAIR was preparing a set of action but declined to give
details.
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