Many of you may have heard or been following the so-called “Holy Land Foundation” trial in Texas where CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to use Islamic charities in this country to fund Hamas in their war of genocide against Israel.

The Dallas Morning News has been doing a bang-up job of covering the trial and all the issues and personalities surrounding it. Here’s a piece that gives some good background on the charges and the issues.

In combing through the thousands of pages of documents seized by federal authorities, prosecutors have translated some documents that will have many blogs buzzing this morning.

The documents detail a Muslim plot to take over the United States.

First, it must be said that I have a better shot of being the closer for the Chicago Cubs than the Muslim Brotherhood has ever had of taking over the country. Reading excerpts from the plan is like taking a walk through a psyche ward for the criminally insane:

A 1991 strategy paper for the Brotherhood, often referred to as the Ikhwan in Arabic, found in the Virginia home of an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, describes the group’s U.S. goals, referred to as a “civilization-jihadist process.”

“The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions,” it states. This process requires a “mastery of the art of ‘coalitions,’ the art of ‘absorption’ and the principles of ‘cooperation.’ ”

Success in the U.S. “in establishing an observant Islamic base with power and effectiveness will be the best support and aid to the global movement,” it states.

A transcript of a Brotherhood orientation meeting recorded in the early 1980s includes discussions of the need for “securing the group” from infiltration by “Zionism, Masonry … the CIA, FBI, etc. so that we find out if they are monitoring us” and “how can we get rid of them.” Discussions later turn to “weapons training at the Ikhwan’s camps” in Oklahoma and Missouri.

Not only were these guys lunatics, they were paranoid as well. The Masons? Thank God they don’t know anything about Moose Lodges.

But as nutso as these fanatics are, a germ of truth emerges from their rantings and certain actions by Muslim groups in the west begin to make sense.

I have taken great pains over the years to differentiate between the extremely small, violent minority of Muslims who have taken up jihad against American and the west and the huge bulk of the followers of the Prophet who wouldn’t hurt a flea. You can no more judge Islam by pointing to Osama Bin Laden than you can judge Christianity by invoking the name of David Koresh or Judaism by using Rabbi Kahane as an example. Such thinking is shallow, ignorant, and flies in the face of the facts.

But it is perfectly proper to judge Muslims who have emigrated to the US and Europe by standards we here in the west set for ourselves – tolerance for other faiths being among the most important. That, and a recognition of living in a shared community while adopting similar values and respecting the rights and dignity of all is a fundamental necessity to the smooth functioning of our western societies.

This does not mean that western Muslims should be prevented from proselytizing their faith nor should the process of assimilation destroy their culture or subsume their traditions. Such assimilation has been going on for centuries and has succeeded in building a stable, vibrant western culture where all can share in the advantages freedom has brought us.

But Muslims have failed in Europe (not so much in the US) to assimilate the western values of tolerance and freedom of thought and resist joining the societies that they have chosen to live. Certainly a large part of the problem have been short sighted policies promulgated by the relatively homogeneous, Christian governments of Europe that segregate the newcomers and deny them many of the benefits of living in the west. But beyond the material, there is the very real and growing problem of Muslim resistance to the very idea that there are certain tenets of western society that all must believe in if it is to work.

The fanatics who wrote the plan to “take over” the US reveal tactics being used in Europe by Muslims to further isolate their communities, shielding them from the influence of western culture while seeking to impose their own beliefs on the majority. There is nothing subtle about this which makes it all the more incomprehensible that governments acquiesce to some of the demands of the “moderates.” If the goal is to avoid social unrest, all they are doing is putting off the inevitable. Eventually, the newcomers will demand more than any government will be able or willing to give. And at that point, the clash they could have avoided by resisting calls for codifying intolerance now will certainly come back to haunt them.

The tactics of “absorption, “cooperation, and using the “art of coalitions” in order to further isolate Muslims in Europe are familiar to anyone who has followed recent history in countries like Great Britain, France, Holland, and Denmark. Ironically, European Muslims build coalitions and garner cooperation not to assimilate but rather to further separate themselves from the societies where they live. They have little thought of “taking over” France or Great Britain (at the moment). But building a separate society, removed from the mainstream and governed by their own laws is almost certainly within their reach. And when the demographics favor them 50 years from now, it won’t be a matter of them “taking over” but instead simple “absorption” of the minority of original Europeans will be all that is necessary.

Such a scenario will not play out here in America. There would have to be a massive influx of Muslims for that to occur. The latest census shows around 3 million Muslims in the United States or about 1% of the population. Even with lax immigration, the idea that Muslims will be able to resist the pull of assimilation in any great numbers doesn’t make any sense. The US is too big, too diverse, for any one group to “grow” themselves to dominance.

Those Muslim Brotherhood nut cases should go back to the drawing board. The plan they’ve come up with doesn’t pass the loony test.