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| Imam Behind Ground Zero Mosque Silent About Malaysian Government's Pro-Jihad Statements | |
| 2010-07-17 | |
Rauf’s political/religious vision is intimately connected with Malaysia, where he lived for ten years as a youngster and where he now owns a home and bases his policy-making organization, the Cordoba Initiative, which also has an office in Manhattan. Malaysian officials have come out with statements that are virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic, including explicit calls for jihad and suicide bombing. Rauf claims that he intends to build bridges between the West and Muslims, yet he has never made any public statement objecting to such incitement. One has to wonder if our State Department is aware of rising levels of anti-American sentiment in Malaysia. Certainly Israel has had to wake up to that with the May 21, 2009 [sic, should be 2010], flotilla of thugs posing as humanitarians who tried to force their way into Gaza. The largest backer of that convoy was a Malaysian NGO called the Perdana Global Peace Organization (aka Perdana4Peace), an organization that purports to call for an end to all wars. In a country where the government runs the Department of Religion, and has state-run television and radio stations (RTM TV1), it is hard to conceive of a true NGO — meaning a non-governmental organization. The Perdana Leadership Foundation is a state-run organization founded by a former prime minister. It was started in 2003, presumably when Mahathir left office. The name Perdana is taken from Mahathir’s official residence, Sri Perdana, where he lived from August 1983 to October 1999. The residence was later turned into a museum, also bearing his brand, Galeria Sri Perdana. Mahathir has been the honorary president of the Perdana Leadership Foundation since the organization’s inception. Mahathir’s presence in Malaysia is inescapable, and with his larger-than-life personality, he made himself a notable figure on the world stage. In 2005, he founded the Perdana Global Peace Organization, dedicated to “criminalizing” war. Mahathir is the first signatory, followed immediately by Imam Abdul Faisal Rauf. | |
| Posted by:miscellaneous |