Terrorist-linked Blogger Attacks Trump Advisor

On May 22, Jonathan Easley published a fine article in The Hill on Dr. Walid Phares’ work with the Trump campaign. Dr. Phares, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, has naturally been contacted by many Muslims, both here and abroad to gain some understanding about how a future Trump administration may deal with their home countries once he is elected as America’s 45^th President. The headline of Mr. Easley’s piece was slightly misleading, “Trump Camp quietly courts Muslims,” as it implied the Trump campaign had directed Dr. Phares to reach out to Muslim groups in the US, even though Dr. Phares corrected this misperception both in that piece itself as well as in later interviews.

Never one to let facts get in the way of a good yarn, Saif Alnuweiri, a young Qatari immigrant (on a student visa?), former fact checker for the New York Times and currently an intern with the National Memo, jumps in with both feet, calling Dr. Phares a “former Christian Militia Commander” in his hysterical title drawing on an old and discredited article by Hezbollah propagandist As’ad Abu Khalil in the far left magazine Salon from 2011. Even that execrable screed did not describe Dr. Phares as a “Christian Militia Commander.” Like the birth of Athena, this idea seems to have sprung from the head of Mr. Alnuweiri whole. Joe Conason, take note. Though the sole purpose of the National Memo these days seems dedicated to trafficking in the most absurd anti-Trump conspiracies, the title of this article is clearly defamatory – the rest of it, however, is just silly.

Alnuweiri sneers at Dr. Phares’ assertion that Muslims in America may be concerned about American policy toward their home countries citing a survey put out by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) which cites “Islamophobia” as American Muslim’s primary concern. He also asserts that Dr. Phares “has close ties to several known Islamophobes.” Undoubtedly, that list will have to be lengthened considerably due to the fact that fully half of the entire electorate supports Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban foreign Muslims from entering the country. We’re all Islamophobes now.

Furthermore, Alnuweiri sniffs at Dr. Phares’ assertion from his book, Future Jihad that, “Jihadists within the West pose as civil rights advocates, interested solely in the ‘rights’ of their immigrant communities,” though it is well-known that an entire alphabet soup of Muslim American associations are fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, or Ikhwan. Mr. Alnuweiri seems to be closely associated with one of those organizations, the aforementioned CAIR, citing them in several articles and they seem to return the favor by featuring his work on their site and facebook page.

Sure, CAIR began as a fundraising arm of Hamas. Sure, they are in unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism support case, are heavily funded by the Saudis and were recently listed as a terrorist organization by the UAE, but hey, what’s a little terrorism among friends?

And Alnuweiri is dismissive of Dr. Phares’ assertion that Mr. Trump may refine his Muslim ban proposal, though that is the obvious next step. For example, President Trump might suspend our refugee and visa programs from the 57 Muslim nations with the exception of Christians and other minorities who face persecution in Muslim lands. Naturally, we can thank the thousands of hard-working Muslims who have made this proposal inevitable.

As Mr. Alnuweiri ends his piece by airily dismissing the only serious proposal to deal with Muslim terrorism in the US, but I humbly submit that until such time as a mind-reading machine to detect incipient jihadism is developed, our country has no choice but to carefully exclude members of the group from among whose members those Jihadis continually spring. Anyone truly serious about America’s national security must concede the wisdom of Mr. Trump’s approach. And no, it is not unconstitutional.

The fact that Hillary Clinton decries this proposal as “un-American” reveals her flippant disregard for the safety of the American people. She would rather sacrifice American lives than be seen as “Islamophobic.” Mr. Trump puts the safety of American citizens first, regardless of the numerous politically correct firestorms which have tried, unsuccessfully, to sink his candidacy.

This is one reason why he will become our next President.