In the news:
Originally published January 24, 2012 at 6:15 PM | Page modified January 24, 2012 at 9:10 PM
Bloomberg blasts use of 'Jihad' movie during police training
Bloomberg said neither he nor Police Commissioner Ray Kelly knew about the film being shown.
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that New York police used "terrible judgment" in showing officers a film about Muslims that Islamic groups have complained is inflammatory.
Bloomberg said commanders have stopped showing the movie, "The Third Jihad," which contends that Muslims are bent on establishing an Islamic regime worldwide. The film, which was played during counterterrorism training seminars, was bankrolled by a conservative group called the Clarion Fund, according to The New York Times.
"Somebody exercised terrible judgment," Bloomberg said in Albany. "As soon as they found out about it, they stopped it."
The criticism was unusual for Bloomberg, who in recent months vigorously defended the police department's counterterrorism efforts after an Associated Press investigation exposed a secret program to gather intelligence on Muslim neighborhoods.
Bloomberg said neither he nor Police Commissioner Ray Kelly knew about the film being shown. The movie was shown on a continuous loop while officers were signing in for counterterrorism training from October to December 2010, according to police documents obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank at New York University.
"The Third Jihad" shows TV images of Hezbollah rocket attacks, children being held hostage by Muslim militants and a woman it says was arrested in Iran for wearing immodest clothing. It shows images it says were taken from Islamic videos and websites, including a doctored picture of an Islamic flag flying over the White House.
It accuses Muslim extremists of posing as moderates and charges several Muslim organizations with being soft on terrorism. It accuses Middle Eastern studies departments at some American universities of supporting hard-line religious governments. Speakers interviewed in the film say "Islamism is like cancer" and urge a "battle for our civilization."
The film is narrated by M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy, based in Phoenix. Jasser rejected Bloomberg's criticism.
"I could not disagree more," Jasser said.
The New York-based Clarion Fund did not return calls for comment. Its website, Radicalislam.org, says Clarion was founded in 2006 by Raphael Shore. Shore is a former leader of Aish HaTorah, a chain of Jewish educational centers.
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said that the police brass did not approve the use of the movie for training and that the decision to play it was made by a sergeant, who has since been reprimanded.
"This was never used in training, period. It was never authorized for use in training, period," Browne said.
The film was used as "intermission filler" and to "provide information for students during breaks to keep their attention focused on counterterrorism issues," Assistant Chief George W. Anderson wrote in one of the documents obtained by the Brennan Center.
Anderson wrote that he believed the video was given to police by someone in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security said it didn't authorize the distribution of the movie.
Muslim groups have complained that the film exaggerates radical Islamic elements.
