Kaufman’s escapades and antics are less impressive than the comic book character, Dick Tracy, whom he seeks to emulate.
“Onion Award for Joe Kaufman for his consistent record of trashing everything Muslim with a broad brush of innuendo, association and excessive rhetoric.” — Americans United for Separation of Church and State at the occasion of their annual meeting.
Joe Kaufman, the virulent Islamophobe and follower of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, is at it again in his endless crusade to slime CAIR and demonize Muslims. In this most recent episode, the “gumshoe detective” wrote a piece for the universally-rejected Right-wing mouthpiece FrontPageMag absurdly titled “Chicago’s Hamas Youth.”
In his hit piece, Kaufman attempts to link Chicago area Muslim high school students who participated in an event to educate themselves on how to become better citizens with Hamas, a Palestinian militant group.
We read such gems from the article as:
“In the Spring of 2007, CAIR-Chicago sponsored its first Muslim Youth Leadership Symposium (MYLS)… At the venue, kids wore shirts with the MYLS slogan: “Constructive Citizenship for a better America.” But for CAIR, “better America” means a United States run by Hamas.” (emphasis added)
Obviously, CAIR has never stated such an absurd thing, yet facts do not matter a thing to anti-Muslim bigots like Kaufman who are all too content with forcing into Muslim mouths the words they wish to hear in order to stay in business.
Nowhere does Kaufman provide any evidence, statements, pamphlets, etc. supporting his absurd claim that for CAIR constructive citizenship equals an America run by Hamas.
Instead of focusing on the content of the event and the fact that esteemed individuals such as U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison (does he believe the congressman is a Hamas member?) has participated, he weaves ludicrous hard-to-follow guilt-by-association conspiracy theories, projecting his own paranoia onto the meaning of the event.
Citing an article from the Chicago Tribune that has been refuted and was widely controversial for its lurid, almost tepid, reporting, he paints one of the speakers, Imam Jamal Said and his mosque, the Mosque Foundation, as extremist. He then attempts to project that portrayal unto MYLS and CAIR by equating the two on the single notion that the Mosque Foundation co-sponsored a few of the symposiums. Co-Sponsors are considered indoctrinators now, amazing!
He also focuses on the dress of the speakers in an attempt to impugn their character and link them with Hamas. He says, “Rehab… donned a keffiyeh for the kids. Keffiyehs, made popular during the Intifada, are head coverings or scarves which are commonly worn as symbols of Palestinian violence.” Here we see a clear example of the non-sequiturs that he is willing to throw around as well as a glimpse into the hysteria that is driving his every waking moment.
Taking a cue from Michelle Malkin and her ilk, Kaufman attempts to equate keffiyehs with terrorism and violence, when in fact they are a traditional dress that has been worn in the region for hundreds of years by many different nationalities.
The truth is that Kaufman is not interested in America but is essentially furthering the cause of Kahanist ideology. It is an ideology that views all Arabs as “dogs” who need to be forcefully expelled or exterminated from all of Israel and also the whole of the West Bank and Gaza. It is an ideology that is willing to use terrorism, by bombing innocents, intimidating opponents and kidnapping. So it is not surprising to find that Kaufman advocates Nuclear Holocaust against Muslims as he writes:
“If the decimation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right thing to do, in response to Pearl Harbor, then why the heck are we saving our nuclear weapons now? And furthermore, if we’re not using them, why do we have the nukes in the first place? After all, there is no more Soviet Union to compete with. If the attacks are not a good enough reason to use them, then what are we holding on to them for?!!! Now, at this point, you may think of me as being no less than a madman, but hear me out, for I have a method to my madness.”
But when confronted with the evidence, Kaufman’s voluntary declaration that he is not a madman is as convincing as Nixon’s famous declaration in the aftermath of Watergate, “I am not a crook.”
Kaufman’s is not the voice of a reasoned, dispassionate and objective analyst but that of a demagogue and polemic out on a mission to take down perceived enemies and threats by any means necessary.
This time Kaufman has gone too far in his comic book fantasy crusade against CAIR by attempting to link a symposium designed to make American youth better citizens with a foreign political and militant group. His penchant for innuendo has driven him to see cultural articles of clothing as sinister subliminal attempts to indoctrinate youth, and to see the participation of an esteemed local Imam and his highly-lauded Mosque as clarion calls for federal investigations.
Kaufman may believe and hope that the current climate is ripe for his cheap anti-Muslim hate propaganda to be lapped up without much resistance or scrutiny. But Kaufman severely underestimates the intelligence and judgment of the American people whose values he clearly does not share.
