Author:
Publication: Fox News
Date: February 3, 2007
URL: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,249521,00.html
The roar of "Death to America" chants
from thousands of militants eager to cause destruction in the U.S. has become
a staple of television in Islamic countries - and the vast majority of Americans
think Washington should take that threat seriously.
That's the finding of a new FOX News Poll,
which asked Americans to rate the threats emanating from broadcasts in the
Arab world.
In a sample of 900 registered voters nationwide,
64% said the threats should be taken "very seriously" and another
24% thought they should be taken "somewhat seriously."
The poll was conducted for a FOX News documentary,
"Radical Islam: Terror in Its Own Words," which premieres Saturday
Feb. 3 at 9 p.m. EST and at midnight on the FOX News Channel.
The program contains a shocking variety of
rarely seen news clips, interviews and Al Qaeda video purportedly of suicide
bombers as they prepare for their missions and blow themselves up in bids
to kill Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One of the videos was aired on Al Jazeera,
the most-viewed Islamic news station. The other was posted on an Islamic web
sight. (FOX News was unable to independently verify whether the suicides actually
took place.)
Alongside those harrowing images are interviews
with the mothers of terrorists who rationalize the loss of their children
in bombing attacks, film clips of Islamic clergy urging further murderous
assaults, and even video of children being taught to hate and kill Americans
and Jews.
Footage shows the violence is not intended
to just stay in the Middle East.
The FOX News documentary also contains never-before-broadcast
video of Islamic clerics in the United States predicting and even threatening
violence against Americans at home.
As one of those Islamic clerics put it as
he took a stage on the campus of the University of California at Irvine just
two days before 9/11, "If you don't give us justice, if you don't give
us equality, if you don't give us our share of America," he said. "We're
gonna burn America down."
That speech was caught on tape by staffers
for The Investigative Project, a Washington, DC-based organization, which
has been tracking the spread of radical Islam in this country since 1995.
The Investigative Project's research, along
with film and video from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),
also based in Washington, feature heavily in the documentary, hosted by FOX
News anchor ED Hill.
Other footage was obtained by FOX producers
and cameramen, and from other news sources.
Hill's investigative report shows dozens of
shocking clips from Islamic television of Islamic clerics and leaders openly
advocating violent attacks on the U.S. and Israel.
The documentary also shows TV programs where
young children literally sing the praises of violent jihad, and speak of their
own desire to become suicide bombers.
"What are you holding in your hand?"
a small boy is asked by a reporter in one TV clip.
"A rifle," the boy answers, matter-of-factly.
"What are you going to do with it?"
the reporter asks.
"Shoot the Jews," says the boy.
"To see videos of young kindergarten
kids singing odes to suicide bombers is- is one of the most- shocking images
I can recall watching in the last 15 years of doing this work," says
Steve Emerson, who launched The Investigative Project.
The FOX program also shows shocking excerpts
from Islamic children's cartoon shows that not only glorify violence against
America and Israel, but clearly encourage children to take part. The images
are graphic and bloody.
"We must not allow these bloodthirsty
Zionists to take even one inch of our holy land. If necessary we will die
this way," one cartoon character says before detonating his bomb belt.
"What is really upsetting is the fact
that some of these channels say that they are part of the national education
system of prominent countries, including countries that are allies to the
United States, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia," says Walid Phares, a Senior
Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Arab media experts interviewed by Hill point
to the videos as stark proof that, though Islamic terrorists have not successfully
attacked the American homeland since 9/11, they are still determined to do
so.
"I had hoped that September 11th was
a wake up call to the United States, but it was not," says Brigitte Gabriel,
a former Arab news anchor. "Americans hit the snooze button and went
back to sleep. And right now our enemy is telling us exactly what they want
to do."
FOX also queried Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder
of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, which describes itself as
an organization dedicated to creating bridges between the American public
and American Muslims.
Feisal described the violent images and indoctrination
as "political," rather than religious. Feisal also likened the statements
by radical Muslims in the FOX documentary to outrageous statements he says
are made by some Christians and Jews.
"There is something in the human psychology
which - which believes in the superiority of its own individual faith. And
wants to impose it on everybody else. There are those who are Christians who
are like this. There are those who are Muslims who are like this."
And why don't more moderate Muslims condemn
the radicals who preach hate in the name of Islam?
"Muslim spokesmen are caught between
a number of objectives," Feisal told Hill. "Part of it is to express
the principles of their faith, which they are bound to. But part of what they
feel also is to express the sentiments of their community on the issues which
the community feels passionate about."
That's not good enough for Emerson.
"In the United States I think we need
to force the Islamic - quote - mainstream leadership - to unequivocally condemn
Islamic terrorist organizations by name."
That's more important now than ever, Emerson
says, because as the radical elements of Islam are a lot closer then Americans
think.
Among the other video clips to be shown on
television for the first time:
*Members of a Radical Islamic group screaming
"Death, death to the American army!" outside the Indian Consulate
in New York City, June 2002. In 2003, suicide bombers linked to that group,
Al-Muhajiroun, killed three in an attack in Tel Aviv.
* A May 2002 rally in California in which
an Imam, speaking of a confrontation with the American government vowed, "We're
going to use force. And whatever was taken by force can only be retrieved
by force."
*In yet another California rally, the speaker
tells his American audience: "One day you will see the flag of Islam
over the White House. Allah Akbar!"
