Turkey’s Islamist Govt. Building Mega Mosque in U.S.

From: Judicial Watch

Most Americans probably don’t realize that Turkey’s Islamist government is building a colossal mosque in the United States with the input of several branches of a group known as the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda.

It’s an alarming story unlikely to receive coverage in the mainstream media, however, a nonprofit dedicated to exposing the dangers of Islamic extremism has posted information about the project on its website. The $100 million mega mosque will be erected in Lanham Maryland and is expected to “become the largest and most striking example of Islamic architecture in the western hemisphere” when it is finished in 2014.

The massive facility, which will be called Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center, will span 15 acres and will feature five buildings, including a mosque “constructed using sixteenth century Ottoman architecture that can hold 750 worshipers.” It will be a place that will help counter an epidemic of “Islamophobia” in the United States, according to Turkish government officials who recently visited the construction site. The delegation was led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose goals include increasing Islamist influence in America.

Greeting Erdogan, who is transforming Turkey from a secular democracy to an Islamist state, on his recent visit to Maryland were leaders of two entities of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda. They include Naeem Baig, president of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

A U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo cited in the story lists ICNA as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The memo says its “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” The memo even refers to meetings with ICNA where there was talk about a merger. ISNA, an unindicted co-conspirator in the nation’s largest Islamic terror funding case, is a renowned U.S. Muslim Brotherhood front group.

This is hardly the first time Turkey’s increasingly radical government tries to infiltrate the United States. The same terrorism watchdog group that exposed this outrageous mosque project also wrote about a network of Turkish charter schools, called Fethullah Gulen, being investigated by the FBI. It’s the largest charter school network in America and is a critical component in Turkey’s transformation from a secular democracy to an Islamic state.

Incredibly, the Obama administration gives radical Turkish government officials free reign in the United States. During the recent visit to the mosque construction site in Maryland, Erdogan’s deputy prime minister, Bülent Arınç, slipped away from the delegation for a day, according to a newspaper that covers Turkish affairs abroad. Arınç reportedly visited an “Islamic scholar” who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

Muslims Demand Germany "Make Islam Equal to Christianity"

From: The Gatestone Institute

A major conference on German-Muslim relations has ended in failure after Muslims attending the event refused to acknowledge the government's concerns about the threats to security posed by radical Islam.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich had wanted the eighth annual German Islam Conference, held in Berlin on May 7, to focus on finding ways the government could work together with "moderate" Muslims in Germany to combat Islamism and extremism.

But Muslims attending the gathering were apparently offended by the insinuation that Islam could be radical or violent, and demanded instead that the German government take steps to make "Islam equal to Christianity" in Germany.

The German Islam Conference was launched by former Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in 2006, and has been billed as the "central forum for dialogue" between German politicians and representatives of the estimated 4.3 million Muslims now living in Germany.

The stated aim of the annual event -- where Muslim organizations and individuals are invited to sit at the table with representatives from federal, state and local government -- is to promote Muslim integration into German society.

This year's event was focused around three main themes: institutional cooperation between Muslims and the German state; gender equality as a common value, and prevention of extremism, radicalization and social polarization.

Muslims attending the conference evidently wanted to focus only on the first theme, which included "promoting the introduction of comprehensive Islamic religious instruction in public schools, including through conferences and publications." Although the government has already made many concessions in this regard, Muslims complained about German "interference" in selecting the teachers who provide Islam training in German schools.

In respect to the second theme -- gender equality -- the German government had hoped to find solutions to the problems of honor violence and forced marriage. But Muslims refused even to acknowledge any connection between Islam and forced marriage. Instead, they managed to turn the gender issue on its head by demanding that German employers promise not to discriminate against Muslim women who want to wear burkas to work.

The third theme -- the prevention of Islamic extremism and radicalization -- undoubtedly caused the most controversy at this year's conference.

Interior Minister Friedrich had been hoping to enlist the support and cooperation of Muslims at the conference to help in the fight against the radicalization of young Muslims in Germany.

Erdogan: "The Image of the Jews Is No Different from that of the Nazis"

From: Gatestone Institute

Now that we know that Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, uttered anti-Semitic comments similar to those made by Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi, will the media do its best to avoid reporting those, too?

In November 1998, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research released its annual report on current trends in anti-Semitism across the world. In the section for Turkey, the journal quoted the then-mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in June 1997, at a meeting organized by the municipality to celebrate the city's conquest by the Ottoman Turks, remarking: "The Jews have begun to crush the Muslims of Palestine, in the name of Zionism," the mayor said, "Today, the image of the Jews is no different from that of the Nazis."

Erdogan later became, and still is, the Prime Minister of Turkey, a man whom President Obama describes as a personal friend, in a country that is a member of NATO, and head of a government that is regarded as moderate, and, as the London Times recently reflected, an example of how Islamism and democracy do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Birikim, a Turkish socialist culture magazine, also attributes the quote to Erdogan. A search through Western newspaper records, however, shows no mention at all of these comments.

That remark is not the only example of Erdogan's hostility in this regard. Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak has reported Erdogan commenting that the media does not fully report Israel's "murder of innocent children" because the "world's media is under the control of Israel, and this needs to be emphasised."

In 2009 another Turkish newspaper, Taraf, reported that Erdogan, while attending the opening of a university, stated, "wherever Jews settle, they make money. They are not property owners, as being tenants suits them best. On the other hand, whatever we have or do not have, we will invest in our houses."

In early January, when the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) produced a video of Morsi describing Zionists as "the descendants of apes and pigs," it took almost two weeks and a barrage of criticism for a leading newspaper, the New York Times, finally to report the comments. The eventual action led to worldwide denunciation of Morsi's remarks and even a condemnatory statement from the White House. Now that we know that Erdogan, Prime Minister of a country considered to be a leading ally of the West, made comments similar to Morsi's, will the media do its best to avoid reporting those, too?

24 Baffling Hours In Turkey

The Gatestone Institute has an interesting little article about a terrorist attack in Turkey. Well worth a look, especially as Turkey is increasingly becoming the most important player in the Middle East and may yet complicate our relationship with Israel.

Built in 397, Oldest Christian Monastery At Risk in Turkey

From: AINA

The Mongolians failed to destroy it 700 years ago despite the massacre of 40 friars and 400 Christians. Yet the existence of the oldest functioning Christian monastery in the world, the fifth century Mor Gabriel Monastery in the Tur Abdin plane (the mountain of God's servants) near the Turkish-Syrian border, is at risk after a ruling by Turkey's highest appeals court in Ankara.

Founded in 397 by the monks Samuel and Simon, Mor Gabriel in eastern Anatolia has been the heart of the Orthodox Syrian community for centuries. Syriacs hail from a branch of Middle Eastern Christianity and are one of the oldest communities in Turkey.

Today the monastery is inhabited by Mor Timotheus Samuel Aktash, 3 monks, 11 nuns and 35 boys who are learning the monastery's teachings, the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Jesus and the Orthodox Syriac tradition.

Although the monastery is situated in an area at the centre of conflicts between Kurdish separatist with the armed PKK group and the Turkish army, Mor Gabriel welcomes 20,000 pilgrims every year.

The Syriac Orthodox community - estimated to be 2.5 million across the world - is under the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch and considers the monastery a 'second Jerusalem'.

The monastery's reputation 1500 years ago was such that Roman Emperors Arcadius, Theodosius and Onorio built new buildings around it and enriched it with art and mosaics. But in the past 150 years Mor Gabriel has gone through a decline after the massacres of Christians by nationalists at the end of the 19th century - 3,000 Christians were burnt to death in Edessa's Cathedral in 1895 - and clashes between Turks and Kurds in the area during World War I.

In the mid 1960s the community in Tur Abdin numbered 130,000.

Today only 3,500 people are left and the 'second Jerusalem' is in danger. The heads of the three neighbouring Muslim villages, Kurds with the Belebi tribe, filed a lawsuit against the monastery years ago with the support of an MP member of the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Under the lawsuit, the Syriacs are accused of practicing 'anti-Turkish activities' by providing an education to young people, including non Christians, and of illegally occupying land which belongs to the neighbouring villages.

After a number of contrasting verdicts, the highest appeals court in Ankara, which is close to the government, has ruled in favour of the village chiefs and said the land which has been part of the monastery for 1,600 years is not its property, Turkish newspaper Zaman reported.

The lawsuit also claimed that the sanctuary was built over the ruins of a mosque, forgetting that Mohammed was born 170 years after its foundation.

The verdict has been slammed by the Turkish media and Zaman wrote that the judges had 'lost' property and fiscal documents 'proving that the land in question belongs to the monastery'.

Mor Gabriel now needs to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in order to survive, a move already undertaken with success a few years ago by the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople to re-obtain the building housing the Orthodox orphanage of Buyukada in Istanbul.