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Did New Jersey Muslims Celebrate on 9/11?
The facts and the eyewitness.
FrontPage Mag
Danusha V. Goska
11/30/2015
Excerpt:
On November 21st, 2015, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said to supporters in Birmingham, Alabama, "Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down."
Trump's assertion sparked a national verbal wrestling match. Mainstream media and cultural leaders rushed to insist that no American Muslims celebrated 9-11. George Stephanopoulos dismissed accounts as mere "internet rumor." Snopes' Kim LaCapria argued that Muslims celebration of 9-11 is a "claim [that] was long since debunked." LaCapria, quoting an American Psychological Association article, theorized that those who report seeing Muslims celebrate 9-11 suffer from false memory syndrome. The page LaCapria linked to makes no mention of the 9-11 terror attacks and LaCapria cites no research by any scholar who studied self-identified witnesses of Muslim celebrations in NJ. The New York Times wrote that "a persistent Internet rumor of Muslims celebrating in Paterson, N.J., was discounted by police officials at the time.
A search of news accounts from that period shows no reports of mass cheering in Jersey City." Reuters claimed that "Paterson officials promptly issued a statement denying the report." National Public Radio's crack investigators "could not turn up any news accounts of American Muslims cheering or celebrating in the wake of Sept. 11." A Slate headline insisted that Muslims celebrating 9-11 is "one of the oldest 9/11 urban legends." Buzzfeed quoted, with approval, CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper, "This has been one of these vile memes on the anti-Islam hate sites for some time, but there's actually no evidence to support it whatsoever." Buzzfeed also quoted the Anti-Defamation League, "It is unfortunate that Donald Trump is giving new life to long-debunked conspiracy theories about 9/11."
Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, blogging at Lawfare, is among the most self-righteous, highhanded, and inflammatory in his condemnation of Trump and also Ben Carson. These people, Wittes insisted, are spreading the equivalent of "blood libel … being used … to whip up the ignorant into murderous mobs … They are either lying or they are delusional. And assuming they are not suffering both from the same hallucination, they are lying in a fashion calculated to instill anger and hatred against a minority population at a time when nerves are raw, fears are high, and tempers are short. There are a lot of names for this. None of them is nice."
Wittes' charge of blood libel raises the stakes. Blood libel was used as an excuse to murder Jews in pogroms and it can be associated with tens of thousands of deaths. Wittes identifies blood libel as "medieval" and Christian – his meaning is plain. Christians are bad people who are bigoted against others; bigotry is a relic of the past.
In fact blood libel is neither exclusively Christian nor is it medieval. Blood libel goes back at least to Pagan, Classical Rome. In 1910, in Shiraz, Iran, a Jew was accused of murdering a Muslim girl. Muslims injured and killed Jews, and 6,000 Jews were dispossessed. Blood libel is so popular in the modern Muslim world that a 2001 TV series, "Horseman without a Horse," featured it. But to address actual facts, Wittes writes, would be beneath him. "I'm disinclined to rehash the tawdry history of this episode in any detail. To engage the substance of it feels a little to me like arguing with Holocaust deniers."
Even the Facebook page for Weird NJ insisted that no Muslims celebrated 9-11. Weird NJ is a publication usually dedicated to describing phenomena like the Ghost Boy haunting of Clinton Road. When people who promote belief in the Jersey Devil start insisting that an event never happened, you know something is up.
Prof. Irfan Khawaja of Felician College and Al Quds University acknowledges that some Muslims did celebrate 9-11. The group was much smaller than Trump mentioned, so the entire story can and must be labeled a "lie" rather than "an exaggeration." Khawaja writes, "He said that 'thousands and thousands' of people were cheering in Jersey City. That's a blatant lie."
The intense effort by empowered voices to erase an event matters. It is more than a footnote in the 2016 presidential race. Several factors are at play here. They include censorship of truth in order to meet the demands of political correctness, an utterly wrongheaded attempt to protect Muslims, an attempt that will only harm Muslims, and profound racism – the racism of an empowered elite who are convinced that average Americans are nothing but "ignorant murderous mobs."
In a May 5, 1920 photograph of Lenin delivering a speech, Trotsky is clearly visible. After Trotsky fell out of favor, he was airbrushed out of the photo. The Soviets were also good at smearing any speaker of inconvenient truths as too insane to be heard. We must reject the Soviet concept of truth. Truth is truth, even if it is politically incorrect. And truth is our friend. Truth is the friend of non-Muslims and Muslims alike.
I lived in and worked in Paterson, NJ, in the 1980s to 1990. I loved my Arab and Muslim friends then, and I love them now. In our many hours-long debates, many of my Arab and Muslim friends expressed enthusiastic and unshakeable support for terrorism. Not all did so; my Muslim friend Emmie's utter rejection of terrorism is described here. I wasn't surprised when 9-11 happened. As horrible as that day was, in one small sense, I experienced a pinprick of relief. Finally, I thought, we can start having an honest conversation about the support that even otherwise good but profoundly misguided people can voice for terrorism.
That conversation has yet fully to emerge. We are still too afraid of saying politically incorrect things. This censorship isn't just a bad thing for non-Muslims. It's a bad thing for Muslims as well. Those who witnessed the 9-11 celebrations, their friends and loved ones see much effort being exerted to smear and silence them, and to negate the historically important truth they speak. This silencing will only increase resentment against Muslims. An open and free public conversation will serve everyone's best interests.
People whom I trust told me that they witnessed the celebrations. None agreed to be named here. They know that speaking this truth in public sets them up for attack. One witness is my former student. He is an Italian-American, an A student who attended class regularly and handed in assignments on time. He is a responsible adult who worked during the day and took courses at night. Almost a decade ago, during a long conversation that touched on many topics, he told me of the celebration he witnessed. He named the location, the public library on Main Avenue.
Another witness was a prominent figure in Democratic politics, in which I used to participate. His account was similar to my student's account. The two men don't know each other. A third witness permits me to quote her here. "I stopped for gas in Belleville immediately after the second fall and there were two men in the station cheering at the TV coverage as if they were watching the Super Bowl and their team was winning." I have known this woman for years. I have to rely on her in financial and other matters. She has never lied to me.
There are tried-and-true methods to assess truth. These include Occam's Razor, multiple accounts, cui bono, and consistency with otherwise verified data. All of these can be applied in the accounts of Muslims celebrating 9-11.
Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is best. Numerous New York and New Jersey residents insist that they or those close to them saw New Jersey Muslims celebrate 9-11. New Jersey radio station 101.5 quotes some of these accounts here. A sampling:
Tom Penicaro: "I worked for PSEG in Clifton on the Paterson boarder and I witnessed it firsthand. They were celebrating in the streets cheering and stomping on the flag. I am a Marine and I remember very very clearly because I was so pissed I wanted to engage them with a bat I had in my van."
William Hugelmeyer: "I was working in the jail when the attacks occurred. Once it was clear it was a terrorist attack, we had inmates celebrating. This instantly caused a lockdown. As you could imagine, many other inmates and officers didn't share their jubilation."
John Pezzino: "They were in the streets banging on the cars trying to drive through the crowd in the street. The Muslims were shouting death to Americans and Allah is great other crap I didn't understand. We were amused until a car with 3 young women mistakenly turned on to main st. The muslims were banging on their windows and screaming, thats when we came out of our car and pushed the muslims off their car helped them back out and get back to the Parkway."
Walter Emiliantsev: "I lived in NJ at the time on Demott Ave., Clifton! When I tried to go to Paterson to my brother in laws shop, I usually took Main Ave. There were so many people dancing on Main, I couldn't get through! I KNOW what I saw!"
........................................
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2609...anusha-v-goska
The facts and the eyewitness.
FrontPage Mag
Danusha V. Goska
11/30/2015
Excerpt:
On November 21st, 2015, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said to supporters in Birmingham, Alabama, "Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down."
Trump's assertion sparked a national verbal wrestling match. Mainstream media and cultural leaders rushed to insist that no American Muslims celebrated 9-11. George Stephanopoulos dismissed accounts as mere "internet rumor." Snopes' Kim LaCapria argued that Muslims celebration of 9-11 is a "claim [that] was long since debunked." LaCapria, quoting an American Psychological Association article, theorized that those who report seeing Muslims celebrate 9-11 suffer from false memory syndrome. The page LaCapria linked to makes no mention of the 9-11 terror attacks and LaCapria cites no research by any scholar who studied self-identified witnesses of Muslim celebrations in NJ. The New York Times wrote that "a persistent Internet rumor of Muslims celebrating in Paterson, N.J., was discounted by police officials at the time.
A search of news accounts from that period shows no reports of mass cheering in Jersey City." Reuters claimed that "Paterson officials promptly issued a statement denying the report." National Public Radio's crack investigators "could not turn up any news accounts of American Muslims cheering or celebrating in the wake of Sept. 11." A Slate headline insisted that Muslims celebrating 9-11 is "one of the oldest 9/11 urban legends." Buzzfeed quoted, with approval, CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper, "This has been one of these vile memes on the anti-Islam hate sites for some time, but there's actually no evidence to support it whatsoever." Buzzfeed also quoted the Anti-Defamation League, "It is unfortunate that Donald Trump is giving new life to long-debunked conspiracy theories about 9/11."
Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, blogging at Lawfare, is among the most self-righteous, highhanded, and inflammatory in his condemnation of Trump and also Ben Carson. These people, Wittes insisted, are spreading the equivalent of "blood libel … being used … to whip up the ignorant into murderous mobs … They are either lying or they are delusional. And assuming they are not suffering both from the same hallucination, they are lying in a fashion calculated to instill anger and hatred against a minority population at a time when nerves are raw, fears are high, and tempers are short. There are a lot of names for this. None of them is nice."
Wittes' charge of blood libel raises the stakes. Blood libel was used as an excuse to murder Jews in pogroms and it can be associated with tens of thousands of deaths. Wittes identifies blood libel as "medieval" and Christian – his meaning is plain. Christians are bad people who are bigoted against others; bigotry is a relic of the past.
In fact blood libel is neither exclusively Christian nor is it medieval. Blood libel goes back at least to Pagan, Classical Rome. In 1910, in Shiraz, Iran, a Jew was accused of murdering a Muslim girl. Muslims injured and killed Jews, and 6,000 Jews were dispossessed. Blood libel is so popular in the modern Muslim world that a 2001 TV series, "Horseman without a Horse," featured it. But to address actual facts, Wittes writes, would be beneath him. "I'm disinclined to rehash the tawdry history of this episode in any detail. To engage the substance of it feels a little to me like arguing with Holocaust deniers."
Even the Facebook page for Weird NJ insisted that no Muslims celebrated 9-11. Weird NJ is a publication usually dedicated to describing phenomena like the Ghost Boy haunting of Clinton Road. When people who promote belief in the Jersey Devil start insisting that an event never happened, you know something is up.
Prof. Irfan Khawaja of Felician College and Al Quds University acknowledges that some Muslims did celebrate 9-11. The group was much smaller than Trump mentioned, so the entire story can and must be labeled a "lie" rather than "an exaggeration." Khawaja writes, "He said that 'thousands and thousands' of people were cheering in Jersey City. That's a blatant lie."
The intense effort by empowered voices to erase an event matters. It is more than a footnote in the 2016 presidential race. Several factors are at play here. They include censorship of truth in order to meet the demands of political correctness, an utterly wrongheaded attempt to protect Muslims, an attempt that will only harm Muslims, and profound racism – the racism of an empowered elite who are convinced that average Americans are nothing but "ignorant murderous mobs."
In a May 5, 1920 photograph of Lenin delivering a speech, Trotsky is clearly visible. After Trotsky fell out of favor, he was airbrushed out of the photo. The Soviets were also good at smearing any speaker of inconvenient truths as too insane to be heard. We must reject the Soviet concept of truth. Truth is truth, even if it is politically incorrect. And truth is our friend. Truth is the friend of non-Muslims and Muslims alike.
I lived in and worked in Paterson, NJ, in the 1980s to 1990. I loved my Arab and Muslim friends then, and I love them now. In our many hours-long debates, many of my Arab and Muslim friends expressed enthusiastic and unshakeable support for terrorism. Not all did so; my Muslim friend Emmie's utter rejection of terrorism is described here. I wasn't surprised when 9-11 happened. As horrible as that day was, in one small sense, I experienced a pinprick of relief. Finally, I thought, we can start having an honest conversation about the support that even otherwise good but profoundly misguided people can voice for terrorism.
That conversation has yet fully to emerge. We are still too afraid of saying politically incorrect things. This censorship isn't just a bad thing for non-Muslims. It's a bad thing for Muslims as well. Those who witnessed the 9-11 celebrations, their friends and loved ones see much effort being exerted to smear and silence them, and to negate the historically important truth they speak. This silencing will only increase resentment against Muslims. An open and free public conversation will serve everyone's best interests.
People whom I trust told me that they witnessed the celebrations. None agreed to be named here. They know that speaking this truth in public sets them up for attack. One witness is my former student. He is an Italian-American, an A student who attended class regularly and handed in assignments on time. He is a responsible adult who worked during the day and took courses at night. Almost a decade ago, during a long conversation that touched on many topics, he told me of the celebration he witnessed. He named the location, the public library on Main Avenue.
Another witness was a prominent figure in Democratic politics, in which I used to participate. His account was similar to my student's account. The two men don't know each other. A third witness permits me to quote her here. "I stopped for gas in Belleville immediately after the second fall and there were two men in the station cheering at the TV coverage as if they were watching the Super Bowl and their team was winning." I have known this woman for years. I have to rely on her in financial and other matters. She has never lied to me.
There are tried-and-true methods to assess truth. These include Occam's Razor, multiple accounts, cui bono, and consistency with otherwise verified data. All of these can be applied in the accounts of Muslims celebrating 9-11.
Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is best. Numerous New York and New Jersey residents insist that they or those close to them saw New Jersey Muslims celebrate 9-11. New Jersey radio station 101.5 quotes some of these accounts here. A sampling:
Tom Penicaro: "I worked for PSEG in Clifton on the Paterson boarder and I witnessed it firsthand. They were celebrating in the streets cheering and stomping on the flag. I am a Marine and I remember very very clearly because I was so pissed I wanted to engage them with a bat I had in my van."
William Hugelmeyer: "I was working in the jail when the attacks occurred. Once it was clear it was a terrorist attack, we had inmates celebrating. This instantly caused a lockdown. As you could imagine, many other inmates and officers didn't share their jubilation."
John Pezzino: "They were in the streets banging on the cars trying to drive through the crowd in the street. The Muslims were shouting death to Americans and Allah is great other crap I didn't understand. We were amused until a car with 3 young women mistakenly turned on to main st. The muslims were banging on their windows and screaming, thats when we came out of our car and pushed the muslims off their car helped them back out and get back to the Parkway."
Walter Emiliantsev: "I lived in NJ at the time on Demott Ave., Clifton! When I tried to go to Paterson to my brother in laws shop, I usually took Main Ave. There were so many people dancing on Main, I couldn't get through! I KNOW what I saw!"
........................................
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2609...anusha-v-goska