This afternoon at the Mar-A-Lago Club on Palm Beach Island a little over 100 people gathered to learn about a new project, spearheaded by the director of the Florida Security Council Tom Trento.
The United West is an educational/activist organization aimed at informing the public about the dangers of “creeping” Shariah and Jihadism, not just to the United States, but also to Israel and the whole of Europe.
Popular local vocalist Lou Galterio -- who belted out his usual stirring rendition of the National Anthem -- opened the gathering.
Then the presentation got underway with terrorism and national security expert, Former-Assistant Secretary of Defense, Frank Gaffney who gave a brief introduction.
Subsequently Tom Trento and North Atlantic League Director Guido Lombardi made a few remarks welcoming their guests, before introducing the first of four featured speakers.
Nidra Poller is an American who has lived in Paris, France since 1972. She has watched the changes in that nation as the number of unemployed and increasingly radicalized Muslim-youth has increased. Ms. Poller, who has written extensively on the impact of Shariah on France, spoke of her experiences in a changing nation and warned that those same changes were already on our shores.
Next Elisabeth Sabaditsch Wolffe of Austria, was introduced. Miss Wolffe was found guilty of “hate speech”, under European Union Law, for talking about the fact Muhammad was married to a 9-year old. She had characterized him as a “pedophile” and since under EU Law anything that might be offensive to a Muslim - no matter how factual - is considered hate speech, she was found guilty.
Again the audience was warned that the First Amendment was already not sufficient protection from the creeping effects of Shariah in the United States. She pointed to the example of Seattle Weekly cartoonist Molly Norris, the impetus for the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoon, prompting Muslim jihadists to issue a fatwa against her. On the advice of the FBI, Norris has gone into hiding because the agency says they cannot protect her.
Another prominent example was Derek Fenton, who was fired from his New Jersey Transit job after burning a Quran on September 11, 2010 in protest over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”. The ACLU (of all people) is representing Fenton in court. The First Amendment did not prevent his employer from firing him for violating “it’s code of ethics”.
As the presentation progressed, Clare Lopez, a former CIA operations officer and a Senior Fellow at the Center For Security Policy, spoke about the failure of the U.S. intelligence community to recognize and address what she called “the Stealth Jihad”. She pointed out that the lexicon of the intelligence community has been “scrubbed” of words like “jihad”, “Islam”. “caliphate” and “Muslim”- just to name a few.
As with many of the speakers preceding her, Miss Lopez pointed out that we can not fight an enemy that we are unwilling to even identify. She said our intelligence services have done a pretty good job dealing with the more obvious violent Jihadists, but that is only part of the battle.
North Atlantic League Director Guido Lombardi then talked a bit about the political strides they have made in Italy to stem the tide of the Islamification of that European nation.
One of the highlights of the afternoon was a speech by former Florida House of Representatives Majority Leader Adam Hasner. Hasner has been a staunch supporter of Israel and opponent of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) - a front group of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2009 CAIR called for Hasner to be removed from his post after he left the House chamber before Imam Qasim Ahmed led the opening prayer, then returned afterwards.
Leader Hasner is a probable candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2012 to challenge incumbent Bill Nelson. He invoked Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” message and warned about “Shariah-Compliant Islam”.
The surprise of the day was when Mar-A-Lago’s owner Donald Trump made a cameo appearance at The United West. Trump was attending the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s fundraiser on the lawn of the club and stopped in briefly. He was greeted by enthusiastic applause and made a brief statement from the podium, which mirrored his recent pubic comments about the Obama Administration and our relationship with China.
There was also a 15-minute video compilation of the work that the Florida Security Council has done exposing mosques being used to raise funds for terrorist groups like Hamas and revealing some of the imams and islamists that have been working here in Florida to support terrorist groups and gradually implement Shariah Law in our backyard.
The video also included an endorsement by outspoken Congressman Allen West (FL CD-22), who has had his own run-ins with CAIR over the past few years.
