Friday, May 18, 2007

Evidence: Lawsuit aimed at racial intimidation of Muslim community

Court documents reveal that on May 28, 2004, David Project directors and several attorneys were developing strategies to cast doubt on the Roxbury Mosque's status as a non-profit organization.

One attorney suggested, "How about simply appealing the building permit and tying things up?"

The group decided to investigate several plans to halt construction, but on July 22, 2007 David Project director Anna Kolodner started panicking.

"The steel is going up on the Mosque," she wrote to the group. “We need to have a plaintiff. This is a priority. Please contact any individuals that would consider this role and let us know.”

Using the lawsuit, Kolodner demanded records from the Boston Redevelopment Authority to use for negative publicity.

Realizing that few Americans could care less where the Islamic Society of Boston obtained their mortgage, real estate developer Steve Cohen discussed creating suspicion by using vague language to question the mosque’s non-criminal foreign “connections.”

"However, the First Amendment will bar any governmental action against the mosque based on these connections - not in the absence of incitement that might lead to ‘imminent action.’ So all we are left with is a public relations campaign.”

This admission betrays a premeditated decision to incite hate by using “terrorist” as an ethnic slur to manipulate public sentiment, while their plaintiff sued the city for selling to Muslims.

“The suit itself will have to stick to the narrow constitutional issues, which have nothing to do with the terrorist connections,” Cohen continued. “However, the pr campaign surrounding the suit can strike a different chord: i.e. that the city of Boston should not be subsidizing a mosque or any organization with terrorist connections.”

“We will be much more effective if we let others ask this question than if we do so ourselves," Cohen admitted. “The suit itself will have to stick to the narrow constitutional issues, which have nothing to do with the terrorist connections.”

On September 2, 2004, Anna Kolodner wrote, "Filing the lawsuit will serve to trip the switch on the larger agenda of exposing the radical fundamentalist underpinnings of the Mosque and its leaders…We need to develop a media campaign and identify who will be the public spokesperson for the group…We need an expert in power point to develop a presentation that can be used with the media, politicians, and community groups."

That power point expert would turn out to be the notorious Robert Spencer.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Muslims involved in mosque plot

Muslims involved in mosque plot
Karin Friedemann
May 13, 2007

View the evidence for yourself at http://members.aol.com/tprovoni/DavidProject/FainburgDiscovery.pdf

Boston--May 12, 2007--New evidence has surfaced, which indicates efforts to enlist professional critics of Islam, including Muslim collaborators, in the conspiracy against the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB). Attorney Jack Fainberg, who previously helped construct a legal case against their mosque, volunteered discovery materials to the ISB.A June 1, 2004 opposition email refers to an unnamed “pro-Jewish Muslim ally in Boston," who used Roxbury Community College connections to help conspirators investigate parking infractions the mosque might have committed inadvertently, that could be used in a legal attack.

Khaleel Mohammed, an academic who advocates “Islamic reform” to right wing audiences was also mentioned in the anti-mosque correspondence.An October 1993 Boston Herald article linked a quotation from Mohammed about mosque financing with two succeeding anonymous quotations so that he would appear to accuse the ISB of links to "fundamentalist Islamist politics." In discovery emails, Mohammed discusses with professional Israel advocates the allegedly “Wahhabi” content of library materials at the ISB. Mohammed was invited to comment about his involvement with the anti-mosque group.

“I am sad to find out that organizations are now using government funds to combat the building of mosques.” Mohammed began.“I have imparted no ‘secret’ information to anyone…I don't know any of the people in the Boston Mosque. I would at most say that if they are into radical Islam, I would be against their building a mosque.”Mohammed claimed that he verified “some translations [of statements by] someone on the mosque board” for a good friend at the Anti-Defamation League.According to the ISB, Islamic scholar Dr. Jamal Badawi claimed under oath that the pro-Israel Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) misrepresented a political comment made in Arabic by ISB Board of Trustee member Dr. Walid Fitaihi.

In April 2007, Dr. Walid Fitaihi returned from Saudi Arabia to offer “an apology without condition” to Jewish leaders in Brookline, Massachusetts for his words, which “he recognized were offensive to Jews.” Fataihi was on a list of twenty Muslims compiled by the David Project, the ADL and Steve Emerson.Their broad and unsubstantiated allegations were summarized by Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer in a power point presentation on February 3, 2005 at a synagogue in Massachusetts under the title “The Boston Mosque: Do Tolerance and Diversity go both ways?”

Original emails: http://members.aol.com/tprovoni/DavidProject/FainburgDiscovery.pdf

Monday, May 07, 2007

Damning Evidence Against Boston Israel Advocates

Islamic Society of Boston releases Opposition Emails:
Damning Evidence against The David Project

Summary: The David Project conspired with real estate agents, lawyers and politicians to organize a campaign to deny the Boston Muslim community their 1st amendment rights to worship freely.


World View News Service
May 7, 2007

Read the original emails at: http://tinyurl.com/23adhf
This week, Jessica Masse, interfaith coordinator of the Islamic Society of Boston, publicly released recent discovery materials obtained as part of the ISB's conspiracy lawsuit, which reveal that an Israel advocacy organization, which specializes in creating malicious anti-Arab, anti-African and Islamophobic propaganda, met with real estate investors, attorneys, and Republican activists at their office at 210 South Street in Boston to discuss an action plan "to present a legal challenge" to the Roxbury Mosque project.
On May 28, 2004, Anna Kolodner, executive director of the David Project, sent an email congratulating the group for their successful meeting.
"Discussion of issues and individuals involved in the Mosque led to some preliminary steps as we continue to gather information and develop an action plan."
Three days later, Kolodner circulated an idea.
"Given that they may not have parking, Josh [Katzen] suggested we might thwart them through the building permit process for the intended parking."
Joshua Katzen is a member of the team of aggressive real estate developers that wanted to unravel the land deal between the City of Boston and the ISB. Another anti-ISB activist, Jonathan Leffell, who develops property in the Boston area, is chairman of the New England "Friends of the Israel Defense Forces" while William Sapers, who instigated the anti-Mosque campaign and who owns an insurance agency in Cambridge, has invested in real estate under the corporate name Hemisphere Inc. Sapers is a director of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, which is an umbrella organization for mainstream Jewish communal organizations in Greater Boston. Steve Cohen, owner of CEA Group, another Boston area real estate agency, took the operational lead in the conspiracy against the ISB.
Steve Cohen suggested to Anna Kolodner that the group recruit a Jewish law student from Harvard to assist their attorneys, Evan Slavitt, who is also a Massachusetts Republican Party leader, and Jack Fainberg, who is a business litigator.
Other participants in this on-going private discussion were Avi Goldwasser, a hi-tech financier and movie producer, who makes malicious anti-Arab propaganda movies like "Columbia Unbecoming," Larry DiCara, who is a Republican politician, and Harvard undergrad Mickey Segal, who is a David Project intern, and Monty Gold, who is Anna Kolodner's husband. Steve Cohen, who is originally from New York, also consulted with Rabbi Melman, a New York-based Israel advocate, who opposes ceding an inch of land to the Palestinians.
Initial attempts to whip up public sentiment against the Muslim community received lukewarm reactions. Reporter Jonathan Wells had complained that he was "pissed that none of the other local media had picked up his story."
"Filing the lawsuit would be the initial lead/newsworthy component of the media angles," Anna Kolodner advised him. This would give the David Project a soapbox.
Anna Kolodner put David Project co-founder Charles Jacobs in charge of "enlisting support of the Black Church community in the suit as a possible plaintiff," but commendably, no one in the Black community would participate in their racist plot.
The David Project had to make do with an Italian American who lives in Mission Hill, nowhere near the Roxbury Mosque.
Policastro's suit was dismissed in 2007 by a judge as being "without merit," but the conspirators were not worried about winning the frivolous lawsuit. It had been a ploy to create negative publicity. Real estate investor Steve Cohen gloated over "the fact that a governmental action was taken in Boston may make this mosque more vulnerable to legal, political or media attack."
In this same email, entitled "Conversation with Jon Wells," Cohen mentioned reporter Jonathan Well's divorce and estrangement from his children like a weakness to exploit.
"After I come up with something to report, he and I will have lunch," Cohen bragged.
He also reported more of what he had learned from Wells.
"[T]he ADL is much more concerned and knowledgeable about this matter than their public statements would indicate. But, being associated with various ecumenical [read: interfaith] efforts, they are reluctant to be the lightning rod on this issue. Jon speculates that they would welcome the assistance and initiative of a bunch of independent guys (like us) who are not afraid of getting some bad press."
Steve Cohen described how he had specifically instructed the Fox TV news reporter Jonathan Wells to use language associating the mosque with terrorism.
According to his May 20, 2004 email, Cohen wanted to seek out information about the ISB's source of donations in the Middle East. Depending on the country of origin, the group would create a sensational news story saying the mosque was financed either by "the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia or by the Moslem Brotherhood," which, they would fraudulently claim "advocate the violent victory of Islam over the west [sic]."
Cohen went on about his conversation with Wells. "We both agreed that it would be very powerful if it could be proven that this is the source of the funding for the Mosque."
Cohen repeatedly contacted the executive producer of the Investigative Reporting unit at Fox25 News in Boston to pressure him and in one conversation instructed Jonathan Wells how to use the Freedom of Information act to obtain records from the Boston Redevelopment Authority about the City's sale of land to the Muslim community.
Cohen further explained his strategy to Anna Kolodner of the David Project:
"Aside from our 1st Amendment claims and the various other strategies to attack the mosque, ultimately our interest is based on the premise that some of the senior people in the ISB are supporters of terrorism and sworn enemies of America and Jews, and that the construction of the mosque may be funded by Wahhabis… If we are going to convince others to support our cause, especially in the media, we will need reasonably well-supported allegations."
The David Project collaborated with
Robert Leikind, the executive director of the ADL;
Steve Emerson, an infamous Islamophobe, who founded the Investigative Project,
Rita Katz, a discredited former FBI informant, who co-founded of the SITE Institute; and
Ilana Freedman, a Republican politician, who is a managing partner of Gerard Group of "counter-terrorism experts" in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts,
to create a "comprehensive document regarding the individuals/organizations/history etc. of the Mosque, which will be the backbone of the media campaign."
This fabrication, labeled "Mosque Characters.doc," lists over twenty Muslim leaders including Dr. Yusef al-Qaradawi, Abdurahman Alamoudi, founder of the American Muslim Council, and various ISB directors with bogus and bizarre links to "the Moslem Brotherhood," Hamas, Hezbollah and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
The email discussion shows that the conspirators wanted to enlist Jeff Jacoby in the anti-ISB campaign. Ever since Jacoby first wrote about the Roxbury Mosque in a January 1, 2006 op-ed column, the Globe has been the chief media source of charges, insinuations and accusatory questions directed at the ISB both in the news pages and in Jeff Jacoby's op-ed columns. The news articles often look like minor variants of David Project talking points or press releases while Jacoby's writing follows the recommendations that Charles Jacobs published on the David Project website in an essay entitled "Questions as Weapons" and January 12, 2007.

This David Project document shows how to use irrelevant and false accusations as an Israel advocacy technique based in the demonization of Arabs and Muslims. Following this principle Jacoby repeats the same charges and insinuating questions in his syndicated column no matter how many times the ISB provides refutations or explanations. The ISB has offered to meet with him and has sent him documentation, which he ignores. In a debate the David Project technique is unethical, and its use by Jacoby in lieu of serious journalism is disgraceful.
In 2004, the David Project, a 501c3 charitable organization, appears to have received half a million dollars in tax-payer funded government grants while at the same time planning this amazingly well organized campaign to deny the Boston Muslim community their 1st amendment rights to worship freely, according to ISB interfaith director Jessica Masse.