Muslims just can\u2019t seem to take a joke. Or at least that\u2019s what some would have you believe.<\/p>\n
Like the contrived<\/a> Danish cartoon controversy, the much-hyped Times Square car bomb incident provided an ideal opportunity for those who seek to make Islam look bad in the eyes of the world.<\/p>\n Before the arrest of Faisal \u201cThe Fizzler<\/a>\u201d Shahzad tied this latest botched terror plot<\/a> to the Pakistani Taliban, some initial news reports suggested that it might have been the work of an Islamist group with a poor sense of humor \u2013 and an even poorer sense of direction. The fact that the fertilizer-laden SUV was parked \u201cabout one block from\u201d Viacom headquarters led the Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s pro-Israel staff writers Jerry Markon<\/a> and Anne Kornblut<\/a> to speculate<\/a> that it may have been retribution for a satire on the Prophet Mohammed shown on one of Viacom\u2019s TV networks.<\/p>\n After Comedy Central aired an episode<\/a> of the satirical cartoon South Park<\/em> in April that depicted the prophet in a bear costume, its creators received veiled death threats from a New York-based group called Revolution Muslim. The threats were issued on the group\u2019s Web site by Zachary Adam Chesser, who now goes by the name Abu Talhah al-Amrikee.<\/p>\n Within days of the posting on the obscure Web site, Joshua Rhett Miller of FoxNews.com did a story<\/a> on it, in which he interviewed Chesser. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims,\u201d the recent convert told Fox. \u201cIt\u2019s just the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n A few days later, Miller did a profile of Chesser<\/a>, in which he described the 20-year-old as \u201cthe boy next door\u201d with a \u201cdark side.\u201d Quoting an anonymous high school classmate, Miller informed Fox readers that Chesser \u2013 prior to his career as a humorless fundamentalist Muslim \u2013 was a \u201cloner \u2026 who frequently drew pictures of Satanic figures in his notebooks.\u201d<\/p>\n The hype over South Park<\/em> was not the first time, however, that Rupert Murdoch\u2019s stridently pro-Israel media<\/a> had publicized Revolution Muslim\u2019s provocations.<\/p>\n On March 26, 2008, FoxNews.com trumpeted<\/a> the group\u2019s puerile puppet show mocking the 2002 beheading of a Jewish American journalist in Pakistan. \u201cI could care less about Daniel Pearl,\u201d group founder Yousef al-Khattab said in an interview with Fox. \u201cI\u2019m happy to see that he\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n In an Oct. 13, 2009, piece, Joshua Rhett Miller drew attention<\/a> to a post by al-Khattab which asked Allah to murder the Jews and urged Muslims to \u201cthrow liquid drain cleaner in their faces.\u201d In yet another interview with Miller, al-Khattab claimed that these outlandish statements reflected the \u201cprayer of every true Muslim.\u201d<\/p>\n On Nov. 8, 2009, Fox reported<\/a> on Revolution Muslim\u2019s tribute to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist charged with the murder of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. This time it was another one of Murdoch\u2019s titles, the New York Post<\/em>, which interviewed<\/a> al-Khattab after he wrote, \u201cAn officer and a gentleman was injured while partaking in a pre-emptive attack. Get well soon Major Nidal. We love you.\u201d<\/p>\n In one of his articles, Joshua Rhett Miller mentioned<\/a>, almost in passing, that the provocative al-Khattab is \u201can American-born Jew formerly known as Joseph Cohen who converted to Islam after attending an Orthodox rabbinical school.\u201d An insignificant detail?<\/p>\n The implausible story of Cohen\u2019s implausible conversion was first told, it seems, in a most interesting venue: Israel\u2019s leading right-wing English newspaper. Cohen, who moved with his wife and family from Brooklyn to Israel in 1998, was one of three people interviewed for a Nov. 25, 2005, Jerusalem Post<\/em> feature<\/a> on the spread of Islam among Israeli immigrants titled, perhaps ironically, \u201cTrue Believers.\u201d<\/p>\n While living in Netivot \u2013 the only town in Israel without a public high school due to the extreme influence there of the ultra-Orthodox Haredim<\/a> \u2013 Cohen said he became disillusioned with Israeli secularism. \u201cAt that time I met this person on the Internet, a sheikh from UAE [United Arab Emirates], whom I met later on, and we started chatting and talking on the \u2019net,\u201d Cohen told the Jerusalem Post<\/em>. After two years of \u201ctheological dialogue\u201d in a Jewish chatroom with the persuasive sheikh, Cohen was transformed from being a supporter of Shas \u2013 the ultra-racist<\/a> political party of Mizrahi Haredi Jews \u2013 to a \u201csudden admirer of al-Qaeda and Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n Seemingly unable to interest \u201cweak\u201d Palestinian Muslims in his newly acquired brand of \u201cpure\u201d Islam, Cohen returned to New York to launch his online jihad for \u201cthe creation of an Islamic caliphate which will rule the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Having not so long ago believed that Jews had a God-given right to Palestine, Cohen is now saying that Muslims should rule the world. The zeal of the converted? Perhaps.<\/p>\n But it also conveniently confirms the Islamophobic propaganda<\/a> of the likes of Daniel Pipes who try to scare Americans into fighting Israel\u2019s wars<\/a> with dire warnings that the Muslims are coming.<\/p>\n ____________________________<\/p>\n Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan.<\/em> <\/em>To read more of his writing, go to <\/em>Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail: Writing and Analysis<\/span><\/em> .<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Muslims just can\u2019t seem to take a joke. Or at least that\u2019s what some would have you believe. Like the contrived Danish cartoon controversy, the much-hyped Times Square car bomb incident provided an ideal opportunity for those who seek to make Islam look bad in the eyes of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}