Steve Emerson fights defamation from Islamic supremacist Cyrus McGoldrick

Steve Emerson fights defamation from Islamic supremacist Cyrus McGoldrick

Posted by Robert on July 19, 2013 2:09 PM

Islamic supremacists and their Leftist allies have for years now been relentlessly defaming those who are fighting against jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. That is their entire modus operandi, and it has been quite successful in intimidating large portions of the American media and political establishment, including conservatives, into thinking that there was something "hateful" and "bigoted" about resisting jihad terror. The only reason why someone like Steve Emerson (or Pamela Geller, or Robert Spencer, or any number of others who are fighting to defend Constitutional freedoms) is "controversial" is because this defamation campaign has made him so. Imagine in 1942 calling those who were fighting the Nazis "controversial," "hateful," "bigoted" and "anti-German"; it would have been a recipe for surrender. And it is today.

But at last, here is at least some pushback. It is very good to see this. In the first place, it shows the absolute moral bankruptcy of people like Cyrus McGoldrick and Linda Sarsour: behind all their pious posturing about being "civil rights activists," they are the ones who are truly hateful, bent on the personal destruction of anyone who dares to resist the Islamic supremacist agenda. It shows that there is no low to which they will not stoop. Such people (and there are many others) are truly vile, hate-filled souls who will not hesitate to tell any lie or half-truth in order to destroy those who stand for freedom. And it is good to see someone finally fighting back. What is ironic about this outraged article at a Leftist smear site is that it is full of the same defamation that they always use against us. It would be good if Emerson could sue these people for calling him "anti-Muslim" and all the rest of it, as well as for the obvious defamation, for the more familiar and more often repeated charges are more damaging in the long run, and no less defamatory.

"What’s in a Tweet?: Islamophobe Emerson Brings Frivolous Lawsuit," by Donna Nevel at MuzzleWatch, July 16:

The Players in the Defamation Suit

Steven Emerson, an anti-Muslim ideologue, is currently suing Cyrus McGoldrick, an American Muslim community organizer and human rights activist, over a tweet that McGoldrick sent to two friends.

 

Calling Emerson "anti-Muslim" is like calling Winston Churchill "anti-German." And Muzzle Watch does not (of course) mention that McGoldrick, far from being a "human rights activist," is a former official of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), or that he has threatened Muslims who talked to law enforcement:

[1]He has [2] done this more than once.

The cosmetic makeover that Muzzle Watch gives to the thuggish McGoldrick, and its smear of Emerson, is not unexpected coming from that hard-Left anti-Semitic site; note, however, that the same slant is usually given in the mainstream media as well.

First, there is Cyrus McGoldrick, who is an effective and respected advocate, writer, and public spokesperson on behalf of the rights of Muslims and all those facing discriminatory treatment or being targeted (by the state or by individual Islamophobes). When he sent the tweet, McGoldrick was employed at the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a highly-regarded Muslim advocacy organization whose mission, as stated on its website, is "to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding."

Hamas-linked CAIR is routinely presented in the mainstream media as a civil rights organization. Its consistent pattern of encouraging Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement is never mentioned. The egregious Detroit Free Press "reporter" Niraj Warikoo, who never saw a jihadi or Islamic supremacist he didn't like, also doesn't bother to mention that CAIR is an [3] unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case â€" so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly [4] refused [5] to [6] denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several [7] former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR's cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made [8] Islamic supremacist statements. Its [9] California chapter distributed the poster above telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.

Then there is Steven Emerson, a member of what the Center for American Progress has called "an Islamophobia network in America." [1] Emerson has been notorious for opposing efforts to build mosques (Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Boston, and Park51 in lower Manhattan) and for putting forth false and distorted information. Respected journalists have widely discredited Emerson, describing him as a "self-styled anti-terrorism expert," "poison," and "disgraced." [2] The Muslim Public Affairs Council has identified Emerson as one of "America's Top 25 Pseudo Experts on Islam." [3]

Note how the defamation becomes self-reinforcing. A hard-Left group (CAP) and an Islamic supremacist group (MPAC) defame Emerson, and their defamation becomes part of Muzzle Watch's further defamation. It is the same thing when anti-free speech Leftists intimidate groups into canceling planned talks by me -- whenever anyone caves, he becomes part of the dossier that is used to pressure the next group into canceling me as well.

Without any evidence, Emerson claimed on network television in 1995 that "Muslim/Middle East extremists" (not Timothy McVeigh) were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing-since, he claimed, "This was done with the attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait." [4] He has provided "misleading statistics" on various occasions, including Rep. Peter King's (R-NY) March 2011 hearing on the alleged radicalization of Muslim American communities. [5] Most recently, Emerson claimed erroneously on C-SPAN, based on "‘certain classified information that he was ‘privy to,'" that a Saudi man was responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings. [6]

Many people at the time of the Oklahoma bombing -- before McVeigh was apprehended (not after, as this story implies) -- were noting that the bombing resembled those that jihad groups had carried out. The sources for all these claims of inaccuracy are not honest observers, but hard-Left activist groups bent on discrediting Emerson. And as for that Saudi who was held in custody immediately after the Boston bombings, there are too many unanswered questions regarding his case for Muzzle Watch to be so confident that Emerson's information was inaccurate. But this is, of course, part of the Big Lie they perpetrate.

The Tweet

The defamation suit arose out of a November 2012 exchange of tweets between McGoldrick and his friend and colleague, Muslim activist and community leader Linda Sarsour. In her tweet, Sarsour quoted Emerson as making the slanderous remark-yet again-that CAIR was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the nation's largest terrorism financing trial. McGoldrick knew well, as did Emerson, that a federal appeals court had criticized the federal government labeling of CAIR and 244 other organizations as "unindicted co-conspirators" and that the government subsequently abandoned this "unconstitutional and improper" [7] claim. But, as McGoldrick's lawyers argue, Emerson has repeatedly made the false charge in his ongoing campaign targeting Muslim organizations and individuals, including CAIR and McGoldrick, in an effort to "smear and damage them." [8]

 

In reality, [10] the court did not remove CAIR's unindicted co-conspirator status. Emerson is not smearing or damaging McGoldrick in pointing out that he worked for an unindicted co-conpirator in a Hamas funding case; it is simply a fact.

After getting Sarsour's tweet, McGoldrick, responding to his friend, sent a tongue-in-cheek tweet back to her (and to one other person, Hussam Ayloush executive director of CAIR-Los Angeles, whom Sarsour had tweeted) that described Emerson as an "unindicted co-conspirator in the nation's largest child pornography case." The two people the tweet was sent to-and anyone who might have followed it-couldn't have possibly missed McGoldrick's joke: that is, using "unindicted conspirator" to mock Emerson's repeated and fraudulent use of the words in relation to CAIR. But after someone sent the tweet to Emerson, he brought a defamation suit against McGoldrick.

The Legal and Political Response

McGoldrick's legal team has responded to Emerson's charges by bringing a motion to dismiss the complaint against him. In their response, McGoldrick's lawyers make perfectly clear how McGoldrick intended the tweet. It was, they wrote, "a response to a sardonic tweet he received from two Muslim activist colleagues . . .[and] an obvious private in-joke that mocked a rabid critic of his and that in context could not be and was not taken literally." They further argue that McGoldrick's tweet was "not a statement of fact, but was an ironic statement of opinion criticizing the government's treatment of Muslim organizations in a terrorism funding trial and was, therefore, protected speech." They also assert that Emerson brought this libel case, as he has done before, "in a bad-faith attempt to silence those who dare to tell the truth about him and his anti-Islam crusade." No "reasonable person," McGoldrick's lawyers maintain, "could have understood that joke as stating an actual fact about Emerson," which is fundamental to a "viable libel claim." Given that even a loyal supporter of Emerson publicly acknowledged that the tweet was a joke, and not an assertion of fact, the lawyers argue that the case should be dismissed.

 

Nonsense. "Unindicted co-conspirator" is a recognized status conferred by the Justice Department. It is thus perfectly plausible that someone could be an unindicted co-conspirator in a child pornography case, and thus not at all clear that McGoldrick's vicious smear was a "joke." The charge against Emerson is plainly defamatory.

Steven Emerson is part of a network of Islamophobes that is well-funded, connected to right-wing Israeli politics, and an integral part of the U.S. "war on terror." [9] This frivolous and destructive lawsuit is yet another unsuccessful attempt by the Islamophobes to silence and intimidate those who oppose Islamophobia and stand for justice.

"Islamophobia" is a propaganda term that is used to intimidate people into thinking that there is something wrong with resisting jihad and Islamic supremacism. And this paragraph is plain projection: groups like the Center for American Progress are exponentially better funded than any counter-jihad group, and Leftists and Islamic supremacists work energetically to silence and intimidate anyone who opposes jihad: witness the relentless campaign to get me and others canceled from any place that has the courage to schedule us to speak in the first place.

Representing McGoldrick are Alan Levine, civil rights and constitutional attorney; Beena Ahmad, of the National Lawyers Guild's Muslim Defense Project; Steven Downs, of Project SALAM and the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms; and Hassan Ahmad, of Ahmad, Naqvi & Rodriguez. The legal papers can be seen on the CAIR New York website (http://www.cair-ny.org/).

(Donna Nevel and Alan Levine, one of the lawyers in the case, are married and are founding members of Jews Against Islamophobia)

 

"Jews Against Islamophobia": that's like Turkeys For Thanksgiving.

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Article printed from Jihad Watch: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/07/steve-emerson-fights-defamation-from-islamic-supremacist-cyrus-mcgoldrick.html

URLs in this post: 
[1] https://twitter.com/CyrusMcGoldrick/status/271715329867124738 
[2] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/10/hamas-linked-cairs-cyrus-mcgoldrick-warns-snitches-theyll-blast-them.html 
[3] http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016754.php 
[4] http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014963.php 
[5] http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016017.php 
[6] http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014790.php 
[7] http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/06/cairs-legal-tribulations.html 
[8] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53303 
[9] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/01/cairs-honest-ibe-hooper-admits-dont-talk-to-the-fbi-poster-crossed-a-line-but-those-who-noticed-that.html 
[10] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/hamas-linked-cair-is-still-an-unindicted-co-conspirator-so-is-isna.html

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