America’s Growing Islamism Problem
America’s Growing Islamism Problem
Good morning!
Five years ago, Jessica Bowie converted to Islam. She renamed herself Aisha Saif, praised God for September 11—and, this summer, plotted to hide a bomb inside a DoorDash bag and drop it off at the New York State Capitol to murder state senators. On Wednesday, federal agents arrested her—an Islamist raised and radicalized right here in America.
Two weeks from now, Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, will speak at the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America. Sharing the platform will be men on record demanding sharia law, amputation and the execution of homosexuals—men who say plainly they intend to take over this country “in a very short time.”
New York City has a Muslim mayor who has repeatedly refused to condemn the call to “globalize the intifada.” As a candidate, Zohran Mamdani visited the Brooklyn mosque of Siraj Wahhaj—an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing—praising him as one of America’s foremost Muslim leaders.
- Wahhaj has said: “You don’t get involved in politics because it’s the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.”
- Now the Democrat Party had made Mamdani a national star and are holding him up as the party’s future.
In Texas, developers marketed a 400-acre enclave as “the epicenter of Islam in America.” They planned a thousand homes around a mosque and an Islamic school.
- State investigators allege the project was structured to exclude non-Muslims—a walled Islamic town rising inside America. (The project is under investigation; ground hasn’t yet been broken.)
The ambitions linking these stories are not hidden. Nearly two decades ago, the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism-financing prosecution in American history, convicted its organizers of funneling millions to Hamas. Among the exhibits was a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum describing the work in America in the movement’s own words—a “grand jihad” to eliminate Western civilization from within.
- The group hosting El-Sayed in two weeks was named an unindicted co-conspirator in that case.
A British journalist is sounding the alarm about where these trends are leading. In 2006, Melanie Phillips published her excellent book Londonistan, warning that Britain’s establishment was quietly surrendering to Islamization.
- Look at Britain now: Muslim grooming gangs whose victims were ignored for fear of seeming racist. A sectarian voting bloc sending “Gaza first” members to Parliament. A schoolteacher still in hiding five years after showing his class a cartoon of Mohammed.
- It’s a clear warning of what happens when a nation won’t defend its own convictions.
Now Phillips sees America walking the same road. “If we’re not careful, Islamic extremists threaten to turn us into ‘Americastan,’” she wrote in the New York Post. “Wake up, America.”
Such radicalization doesn’t take many Muslims. It just takes a nation that has forgotten what it believes. America was built on a Bible-based conviction that its liberties came from God and were worth defending.
- We’ve traded that for the hollow virtues of multiculturalism and diversity. This has opened us up to infiltration by a radical religious movement inimical to everything America stands for.
Britain and America aren’t just two nations making the same mistake. We are brothers of biblical birthright. The elder nation is a bit further down the path the younger is now following—but our destination, and our destiny, is the same. A blessed people that forsakes the God who made it great loses the will to defend what He gave.
Israel’s Cold War with Turkey
Israel bombed an airfield in Syria overnight, August 18 to 19, but the real target was Turkey.
Turkey was about to deploy 200 troops and drones to the Abu Duhur airbase, Turkish media reported.
“We will not tolerate a Turkish military entrenchment in Syria that threatens Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu posted on X. “Apparently, they didn’t hear it clearly enough, so we made sure they understood it better.”
Iran is not Israel’s only enemy. Turkey played a key role in bringing the ex-Islamic State terrorist Ahmed al-Sharaa to power in Syria. Hamas moved its covert operations from Qatar to Turkey earlier this month and is therefore able to plot terror attacks against Israel while protected by nato’s mutual defense clause.
“Now [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan is nudging al-Sharaa, a former member of both al Qaeda and isis, into increasing hostility toward Israel,” wrote Melanie Phillips.
- Just this week, videos have emerged showing Syrian soldiers chanting death threats to Jews, including: “I am coming for you Jew … I will make your blood flow in rivers.”
Netanyahu is that rare leader who can see more than one threat at a time. He has warned for years about the anti-Israel terror network Iran has set up across the Middle East. He also sees that Turkey holds a similar hatred.
Donald Trump is not so clear-sighted: He has praised and worked with both Erdoğan and Sharaa, and is even letting Syria keep hold of dangerous nuclear material (see our main story for details).
A new alliance of Muslim nations is rising: Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense agreement on August 7. Their foreign ministers will visit Egypt later this month to try to draw it in as well. Meanwhile, the Turkey’s chief of General Staff held calls with his Qatari and Omani counterparts.
- In contrast, Israel reached out to Turkey’s most reliable enemy. General Dimitrios Houpis, chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff, traveled to Israel this week to discuss military cooperation.
The Bible warns of a similar alliance: Psalm 83 describes a group of nations that includes Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which says: “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (verse 4). The Jews in the Middle East descended from just one of the tribes of ancient Israel, but they are one of the targets of this alliance.
Netanyahu sees the threat; America does not. To learn more, read “Another, More Mysterious Alliance.”
Lebanon Edges Closer to the Vatican
Lebanon wants Israeli forces to withdraw from its territory, and Pope Leo xiv signaled his support for it after meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun yesterday. Prophecy shows that this alliance with the Vatican poses a greater security threat to Israel than Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
- Aoun expressed serious concerns that Israeli forces are refusing to withdraw from Lebanese territory in keeping with a United States-brokered deal between Israel and Lebanon. He failed to mention that his government has not disarmed Hezbollah.
- He also urged the pope and Vatican officials to use diplomatic means to stop Israeli attacks against civilians, infrastructure and villages.
Handcuffing Israel: The pressure from the Vatican and from Lebanon on Israel hinders its fight against a powerful, proximate terrorist group that has killed hundreds of Israelis over the course of decades.
A forming alliance: This was Aoun’s second private audience with the pope at the Vatican. He also met with the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the Vatican secretary for relations with states and international organizations, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher. For more than a decade, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has said that Lebanon’s Catholic ties will draw it into an alliance with Europe against Israel. In 2014, he wrote:
Lebanon is the only Middle Eastern country with a strong Christian population. Forty percent of Lebanon’s people belong to a Christian denomination; the largest is the Catholic-affiliated Maronite Church. By constitutional decree, the president of Lebanon must be a Maronite. … This heavily Christian population makes Lebanon different from the rest of the Arab world. … Because of its high population of Christian Arabs, Lebanon has become a linchpin for the Psalm 83 alliance.
Psalm 83 prophesied that Germany would ally with Turkey and various moderate Arab groups—against Israel. To learn about Lebanon’s part in this alliance, read “The Fall and Rise of Lebanon.”
IN OTHER NEWS
North Korea shrugs off Trump’s overtures, launches ballistic missiles: North Korea fired a volley of ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan yesterday, a day after the regime brushed aside U.S. President Donald Trump’s warm words for Kim Jong-un and his decision to downsize U.S. military drills with South Korea in deference to the North Korean dictator. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the leader, said: “If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get the desired answer.” The volley of missiles further emphasizes that the North Korean regime will not be easily drawn away from its current alignment.
Harry is coming back to Britain: The duke and duchess of Sussex, aka Prince Harry and Meghan, are moving back to the UK, the British media revealed this week. They will not resume their jobs as working royals, nor will their status as private individuals change. Harry and Meghan’s split with the royal family caused a lot of damage to that family and Britain, particularly the accusations that the royal family is racist. Their return opens the door for more headlines and high-profile embarrassment.
