March 4, 2006

By Jerry Gordon former U.S. Military Intelligence officer and Middle East Affairs analyst for American Congress for Truth

On a snowy March 2nd, I joined my wife Jean and a friend, Judy Shapiro and attended a reception and premiere in Manhattan of an extraordinary gripping film co-produced by Aish Ha Torah’s Honest Reporting : “Obsession”: Radical Islam’s War against The West.” “Obsession” is an important documentary film that is a wake up call to America and the West about what one of the hosts of the reception and premiere, David Leibovitz said was a “clear and present danger” of radical Islam: Islamofacism.

“Obsession” is a feature length film running fully 95 minutes and well crafted by director, editor, writer, South African born Wayne Copping and co-produced by Rabbi Rafael Shore of London, Ontario. A final cut version we understand will be available for distribution in June. It is a brilliant assemblage of archival footage of radical Islamic barbarities perpetrated across the globe, sermons of radical Imams from 24/7 satellite TV and undercover footage from Lebanon, the Palestine disputed territories, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, London and New York. Among the effective talking heads are “ha yedim”-friends of Israel and the Jewish people: ex-PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat www.shoebat.com, Nonie Darwish , my colleague and founder of American Congress for Truth, Brigitte Gabriel . Equally impressive were comments from Jerusalem Post (JP) Columnist and Senior Fellow for Middle East affairs at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, Caroline Glick and courageous JP Israel Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh .

Among the renown experts interviewed in this well integrated film were the noted columnist and expert, Daniel Pipes www.danielpipes.org, Steven Emerson, pioneer in radical Islam counter terrorism in America and founder of The Investigative Project, Itamar Marcus of Palestine Media Watch, London-based investigative journalist Glen Jenvey, British Historian, Sir Martin Gilbert, Hebrew University professor and expert on European and Arab Muslim anti-Semitism, Robert Wistrich, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and John Loftus, former Federal prosecutor and co-founder of the Intelligence Summit.

There were also some other Muslim speakers of note, including controversial Professor Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State University, Prof. Selim Mansur of Western Ontario University www.honestreporting.com/obsession/interviews.htm and Senior Fellow of the Canadian Coalition of Democracies and courageous editor of Pakistan Times, Tashbih Sayyed. .

At the reception, prior to the film’s premiere we chanced upon Steve Emerson finishing a phone call to an NBC Today program producer who was teeing him up for a segment that wanted to feature him discussing President Bush’s trip to Pakistan to meet President Musharraf in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed one US Diplomat and three others and injured 20 people outside the US consulate in Karachi. Apparently there was going to be a tussle with Musharraf about his referring to the controversial Danish Mohammed cartoons during opening remarks welcoming President Bush.

Those of us in the “Obsession” premiere audience who watched it were impressed with the editing, continuity and interleaving of archival footage in ‘both black and white and color” as Steve Emerson said in his post viewing remarks and the comments of the talking heads-several of my friends among them. The film dramatically opens up against the stylized format of a world map and begins a globe girdling radical terrorist attacks sequence beginning with a certain Tuesday in New York on 9/11 that I and many others witnessed first hand with the aerial fire bombing destruction of the now mythic twin towers of the World Trade center to Wednesday March 4th, 2004 and the slaughter of the commuters on those trains pouring into Madrid to those London underground and surface bus bombing on a Thursday in July, 7th, 2005 in London and then clips from other atrocities in Europe, Turkey, Beslan in Russia, Africa, Israel, Iraq, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. While jarring these initial film clips effectively teed up what followed next in sequence: the excerpts of sermons by Islamic clerics and commentators in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and the UK.

There’s a brief exchange of separate interviews about how many radical Muslims there are among the world’s estimated 1.3 billion adherents. Daniel Pipes guesstimates in one film segment that while the majority of the world’s Muslims are “peaceful and not violent”,but, “perhaps between 10 to 15 percent” are extremist and violent. Ex-PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat extrapolatres this estimate to demonstrate that we are talking upwards of nearly 200 million of such extremist radical Muslims equivalent to nearly two thirds the population of the US. Further, he states that jihad for these radicla Muslims doesn’t mean inner strugle but the original Koranic concept of holy war against the Kuffir or unbeliever-meaning you and me, or anyone professing an alternative belief to Islam

My wife and our friend Judy Shapiro who accompanied me to the premier thought was particularly arresting to the general viewer were those film clips dealing with the indoctrination of children in Palestine, Iran and Saudi Arabia. There were those precious doe eyed girls and boys of 3 to 5 years being prompted to spout such hate and incitement to death. This was heart rending that any culture-if you can call radical Islam that-would heinously pour such poisonous venom into their ears and minds.

There is a graphically convincing segment that clinches the Islamofacism argument central to this film. The segment begins with comments by Walid Shoebat about the connection of Nazism and what patently is Islamofascism: “Yes, Jihad means struggle within, but so does Mein Kampf.”

What follows in that segment is archival footage documenting the long standing hatred of Jews and ultimately Israel beginning in the 1930’s with riots in Palestine and the arrival in the world stage of the infamous Haj Amin al Husseini, www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem as Hitler’s House guest. Professor Robert Wistrich directs the viewers’ attention to an August 1941 document exchanged with the Grand Mufti on his first meeting with Nazi madman Adolph Hitler citing his intention of destroying European and world Jewry. This is followed by archival footage of the Grand Mufti trooping the lines of Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS troops www.zionism-israael.com/dic/Haj-Amin_El_Husseini.htm and effective voice over commentary from noted Nazi hunter, John Loftus.

But the “star” of this segment is a former Hitler Youth leader, Alfons Heck www.honestreporting.com/obsession/interviews.htm who demonstrably makes the connection between the Nazi destruction of Jews and the Arab Muslim perpetuation of barbaric anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. This interview is precious as Heck passed away in April of 2005.

There is very effective intercutting of Nazi eras rallies and contemporary ones in Iran, Lebanon and Palestine all features ski-masked terrorist cadres in uniform “heil Hitler”-like stiff arm salutes. It makes for dramatic parallelism between Nazism and Islamofascism.

My wife also pointed out the abhorrent footage of a Syrian Ramadan TV series portraying Jews conspiring in a “blood libel” to capture Christian children and slaughter them for their blood to purportedly make Passover Matzos. That this passes for “entertainment“ in the Muslim world during Ramadan. This patent forgery belies the fact that here are Radical Islamists who have slaughtered Christians and Jews like Wall Street Journalist Danny Pearl in Pakistan, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam and as we saw in one clip, American contractor Armstrong, in Iraq..

The film also captures undercover footage taken by British investigative journalist Glen Jenvey in the infamous Finsbury Park Mosque of the Egyptian born Imam, Abu Hamza al-Masri, now convicted by British Courts for his involvement inciting hatred and murder among British Muslims. That footage coupled with British Muslim protests in London and filmed excerpts of British Muslims in Pakistani al Qaeda training camps was most telling. As was the footage of The Islamic Thinker Society in Queens New York using protected speech under our First Amendment to destroy an American flag and mock their manipulation of our Constitutional guarantees of free speech.

If I had to cavil about anything with the “Obsession”, it is the absence of some leading edge members and friends in the anti-Jihadist “front.” Here I refer to Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, Bat Ye’or -author of “Eurabia” and pioneer in the study of Dhimmitude, author and apostate Muslim, Ibn Warraq , Andy Boston , author of the acclaimed book, “The Legacy of Jihad.”

After the film’s premier, Steven Emerson of the Investigative project, who was introduced by David Liebovitz and Paul Singer, co-hosts, penciled in problems of radical Islam’s encroachment here in America. He drew our attention to the failed Sami al Arian trial in Tampa, upcoming ones dealing with Hamas organizations in Chicago and New York. He cited the intimidation by Muslim civil rights groups like the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) -both emblematic of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood abuse of US predilections in our “Kumbaya” society to protect the “human rights” of “victims” and manipulate our basic Constitutional freedoms for their own nefarious ends. Emerson also referred to in passing his own involvement as a defendant in the current libel action brought by the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) against he and several others, including friends in the David project, as well at electronic and print journalists.

The Q+A was extraordinary because of the presence of several important journalists, writers and counter terrorism experts. In the latter category we have representatives from the NYPD counter-intelligence units, Federal prosecutors and the NY regional field office of the FBI.

Probably the most effective questioner and speaker was Wall Street Journal Op-ed commentator and 9/11 family survivor, attorney and former flight attendant Deborah “Debra” Burlingame, whose heroic brother “Chic” was a pilot on the ill-fated Flight 77 seized by Islamist terrorists and crashed into The Pentagon. Burlingame raised a suggestion that many of us had thought of: establishing an effective anti-Jihadist legal and research group akin to the Southern Poverty Law Center founded by pioneer pro bono lawyer Morris Dees in Montgomery, Alabama that destroyed and bankrupted the KKK and neo-Nazi racist and anti-Semitic groups here in America. Burlingame was followed by MSNBC TV news program host Monica Crowley who asked Emerson about the threat of WMD entering the US by radical Islamic groups. Carol Taber of Family Security Matters drew attention to the plethora of Muslim Student Association chapters on college campuses that number over 400 exceeding the clubs of Democrat and Republican parties (added together).

. Joel Mowbray, award winning investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist asked Steve to talk about those who were trying to suppress him-an allusion to the ISB legal action. I followed with remarks about the devastating muzzling and financially crippling effects of the ISB case in Boston noting that my friends in the David project-co-defendants in the libel matter were facing legal costs verging on $500,000. The ISB action was brought by a group one of whose leaders Abdurraham Alamoudien had been convicted and sentenced to 23 years for terror financing by our government . I pointed out that over $14 million for the Mosque project to be built on city owned land in the Roxbury section of Boston was collected from known Saudi and Emirate terror financiers.

Emerson issued a clarion call for a proposed anti-Jihadist summit at which the prevailing evidence, issues and proposals for creating a permanent anti-Jihadist coalition would be developed.

All in all the premiere of ““Obsession”” by Aish ha Torah held on a snowy March evening at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at the Dorothy and Lewis S. Cullman center was an extraordinary and indeed defining event. “Obsession” is indeed a wake up message to a sleeping American public cowed by fear and menace by radical Islamists in our midst. And yes, the film is distressing that such hate, incitement and barbarity flourishes in the 21st century. But the film rouses the American public into concerted action then it will have served a vital and important purpose.

My personal compliments to Aish Ha Torah and Honest Reporting.com, director Wayne Kopping, my “ha yedim” –friends of Israel and the Jewish people who appeared in the film, the event co-hosts who sponsored the event and to Steve Emerson and the extraordinary audience who came to this important premiere. “Obsession” has won the best feature film at the Liberty Film Festival and is next headed for a premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

If you have an opportunity to see “Obsession” in your vicinity after its final release in June I would recommend that you arrange community showings and get the word out so that a broad general audience can be reached. It is that important. Viewing a film like Obsession is important given the travesties that pass for film art under consideration at the upcoming Hollywood Oscar Awards this Sunday in California. I’m referring to best picture and foreign film nominees like Steven Spielberg’s wretched film “Munich” trivializing the moral actions of a people revenging the slaughter of innocent Israeli Olympians and the “Pallywood” suicide killers “love story” of “Paradise Now”.

Strike a blow for truth-arrange viewings and go see “Obsession” .