Pete King says 'The Third Jihad,' and Kelly's cameo are 'very appropriate'

From AIFD:

The following two pieces on the NYPD curfluffle appeared in recent media. Pete King says 'The Third Jihad,' and Kelly's cameo are 'very appropriate' REID PILLIFANT, Capital, 1/30/12 Representative Peter King doesn't have a problem with NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly's appearance in the controversial film "The Third Jihad" "To me, I think it was very appropriate for Commissioner Kelly to be in the film," King, a Republican from Long Island, told me this afternoon. "I know what Ray and the mayor are saying, but I think it was appropriate." Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the film, which warns of extremism among American Muslims, was "not appropriate," even as he has repeatedly defended Kelly for appearing in it. The film, which was shown on a loop to nearly 1,500 officers undergoing anti-terrorism training, was narrated by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim physician and activist, who was also a key witness in King's Homeland Security Committee hearings early this year examining the role of Muslim extremism in America. "To me, to have someone like Jasser, who's an expert in the community, giving his view of what the threat is, is very legitimate," King said. "Obviously he's a devout practicing Muslim, so he's not demonizing all Muslims. His point of view, whether people agree with it or not, is a very legitimate one. I think that if we're going to have any kind of open discussion and debate and free speech, it's actually helpful for police to be exposed to that type of thing. I happen to agree with Jasser, but even if I didn't, I think it's a very legitimate point of view." King said he wouldn't have a problem if the video was screened as a formal part of the officers' training, but that he also wouldn't have a problem with another opinion being shown too, citing his own invitation to Keith Ellison to present an alternative view at his Homeland Security Committee hearings. This morning, King's re-election campaign emailed supporters, encouraging them to read Dr. Jasser's editorial in the New York Post, responding to a New York Times editorial that called it a "hateful film." In the email, King said the "rabid" reporters and editors at the Times "an apologist and mouthpiece for Islamist groups such as CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations)." King told me the controversy would probably last as long as the Times wanted it to. "I think so long as the New York Times is breathing, they're going to be going after any type of strong counterterrorism effort," he said. Furor over film reeks of political correctness Daniel Leddy, Staten Island Advance, 1/31/12 I was going to begin this column by noting that the New York Times is at it again. That, however, would have implied that its shilling for liberal causes is not an everyday occurrence. And if that were the case, the Website Timeswatch.com, which is dedicated to exposing its liberal bias, wouldn't be working overtime to keep up with the Gray Lady's shenanigans. Last week, the Times ran three stories and an editorial sharply critical of the New York City Police Department for having shown the documentary "The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision for America" to some 1,500 police officers as part of its counterterrorism training. In its headlines and news reports, the Times repeatedly referred to the film as "anti-Muslim." Its editorial, headlined "Hateful Film," demanded that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly make it clear that "his department does not tolerate such noxious and dangerous stereotyping." The newspaper's reporting was not just inaccurate, but consciously deceitful, and its editorial rant was off the wall. Here's what the Times didn't tell its readers about "The Third Jihad," which, incidentally, can be viewed in its entirety online. It begins with the following admonition in bold letters: "This is not a film about Islam. It is about the threat of radical Islam. Only a small percentage of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are radical." It can't get any clearer than that. The Times also failed to mention that the film's narrator, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, is a devout Muslim and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Condemning the Times reporting as "shoddy and biased," Dr. Jasser wrote in National Review that "They essentially have no use in their political agenda for devout Muslims who maintain the courage to publicly take on the dominant American Islamist establishment from within." The Times' initial story last week carried the headline, "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims." The remarkable jump from radical Islam, with which the documentary is exclusively concerned, to U.S. Muslims as a class is thus created not by the film, but by the Times' own bullhorn. Reporter Michael Powell asserted in his first sentence that it contains "a doctored photograph [that] shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House." Considered in the context and tenor of his report, the implication was that the photo had been altered by the film's producers. It is clear from the film itself, however, that the photo was part of footage from Islamist sources, a fact confirmed by the producers. SLOPPY JOURNALISM Powell continued by quoting the film's narrator as saying, "This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America." Well guess what? The celebrated "newspaper of record" got that quote wrong. What the narrator actually said was "This document shows the true agenda of much of Muslim leadership here in America." The Times' obsequious readership should be appalled by such sloppy journalism, but don't count on it. Tellingly, the newspaper did not dispute the factual assertions contained in "The Third Jihad." It simply ignored them. This notwithstanding their sober warning for all Americans, including the great majority of Muslims who are both loyal and law-abiding. Nor did the Times credit or even acknowledge the NYPD's successful record of keeping the city safe from radical Islamic ambitions. What the Times did deem newsworthy, however, was that the film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit organization whose "previous documentary attacking Muslims' 'war on the West' attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel." Then, straining mightily to underscore an Israeli link to "The Third Jihad," the Times noted that the Clarion Fund "shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization whose officials have opposed a full return of the West Bank to Palestinians." That isn't just bad journalism; that's media malpractice. Those who rely on sources such as the Times for an understanding of the film are bound to be seriously misled. On Friday, for example, New York City Council Member Robert Jackson, that body's only Muslim, told the New York Observer, "I initially thought from reading about it that it cast a negative image on all Muslims throughout the world. In my opinion it does not. It focuses on the extreme Muslims that are trying to hurt other people." Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called the film "a wake-up call for America." Similarly, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, declared, "It is imperative that 'The Third Jihad' reaches a mass audience in the U.S. so that the urgency of this threat becomes clear to the American public." Apparently bowing to political pressure manufactured by the Times' tendentious reporting, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Friday that the film should not have been shown to city police officers. He's wrong. What's really alarming here is not that some 1,500 police officers have seen "The Third Jihad,", but that the remaining 33,000 or so have not.