Newt Gingrich’s Muslim Problem

by Sheila Musaji

Here is our original entry on Newt Gingrich from Islamophobia No Longer Questioned Even By Our Elected Representatives:

Newt Gingrich stepped into the Islamophobic attack on Cordoba House.  He said “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.”  “The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.” “America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.”   He also said “It’s not about religion, and is clearly an aggressive act that is offensive.”  Right, let’s just throw out the Constitution.  Ibrahim Hooper got right to the heart of this fuzzy thinking when he commented “as if the constitutionally-protected religious rights of Americans depend on the actions of a foreign government.”  Gingrich compared the backers of the Cordoba House to Nazis.   Gingrich claimed that the Islamic center project in NYC ‘would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.’  Gingrich parroted the right-wing fringe in declaring the Muslims behind the center are “radical Islamists who want to triumphally prove that they can build a mosque right next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists.” 
— He has also produced through his Gingrich Productions an anti-Muslim film called “America at Risk”.  — He also said at the Values Voter Summit VVS that it’s time to take federal action to prevent Shariah Law from infiltrating courtrooms in the US. and he called for the removal of Supreme Court Justices if they disagree.  Gingrich also said “I have two grandchildren ... I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”   It’s hard to understand how the Muslims will dominate the country and force everyone to live under Sharia law while at the same time turning the country secular and atheist. 
— Gingrich blasted blasted the Obama administration for what he labels a refusal to confront radical Islam:  “Until you replace this president and until you have the Congress and the new president replace large parts of our bureaucracies, we’re going to continue to be dominated by a secular, anti-Christian and anti-Jewish elite, which is seeking to impose on us rules that make zero sense,”  
— Gingrich praised the anti-Muslim, David Barton of the American Family Association.
— He said “America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.”
— During the New Hampshire GOP debate Newt Gingrich suggested that all Muslims should be suspect until they prove their loyalty and they deserve higher scrutiny, like Communists or Nazis.  He seemed to agree with Herman Cain’s call for a loyalty test.
— Gingrich wants a government That Respects ‘Our Religion,’ Not ‘Every Other Religion’ 

Gingrich usually gets it wrong when it comes to anything to do with Islam or Muslims.  When the false story was circulated that Muslim students at Catholic University were demanding that crosses be removed,  Newt Gingrich once again jumped on the anti-Muslim bandwagon with this false story.  Fox News reported that Gingrich was up in arms and he told a large audience “I look at the things that are going on in this country that make no sense to me,” he said to a crowd of about 250 South Carolinians gathered at a pig roast fundraiser organized by the Myrtle Beach Tea Party. “We now have a lawsuit apparently by some Muslim students at Catholic University who are offended being at a Catholic university. Now my first answer to them is ‘Fine, don’t go to a Catholic university.’”  Although Gingrich is already to believe any negative he hears about Muslims, the facts were that Charges Against Catholic University Were Not Made by Muslims

Eli Clifton wrote about The Dangers Of Gingrich’s War Against Islam

Washington Post columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson examines Newt Gingrich’s history of anti-Muslim fear-bating and concludes that “those views demonstrate a disturbing tendency: the passionate embrace of shallow ideas.” But Gerson fails to acknowledge that Gingrich’s “shallow ideas” are more than just rhetoric. Gingrich has a plan to put them into action.

Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute last year, Gingrich told the audience:

It’s time we had a national debate on this. And one of the things I’m going to suggest today is a federal law that says ‘no court, anywhere in the United States, under any circumstances, is allowed to consider Sharia as a replacement for American law.’ Period.

Watch it:

And Gingrich’s 2010 documentary, “America At Risk: The War With No Name,” portrays a disturbing vision of the world in which the U.S. and its western allies are at war with Islam.  “This war will go on until either the entire world either embraces Islam or submits to Islamic rule,” says historian Bernard Lewis, while appearing in the film.

Further exemplifying his anti-Muslim sentiments, In an interview last week, Gingrich explained that the Palestinians are an “invented people,” a statement effectively denying the right of Palestinians to a state. Such a position would end U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and rejects the policy positions of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations.

Gerson’s effort to flag Gingrich’s anti-Sharia rhetoric as “simplistic” is a welcome pushback against the growing Islamophobia in the far-right. (We addressed this problem in our recent report “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America.”) But Gerson fails to acknowledge the potential domestic and foreign policy implications of Gingrich’s anti-Muslim statements.

UPDATE 7/24/2012

Gingrich is defending Michelle Bachmann against criticism for her recent Muslim Brotherhood “infiltration” of the government charges.  See Michele Bachmann Ups the Ante in the GOP War on American Muslims for a full background on this incident. 

SEE ALSO:

Newt Gingrich…History of Anti-Islam Slurs http://www.onislam.net/english/news/americas/455097-newt-gingrichhistory-of-anti-islam-slurs.html

Newt Gingrich’s Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theories, Charles Johnson http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39829_Newt_Gingrichs_Anti-Muslim_Conspiracy_Theories

Islamophobe Frank Gaffney Endorses Newt Gingrich’s Anti-Muslim Comments, Eli Clifton http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/01/19/407141/gaffney-gingrich-sharia/