EXCLUSIVE: From the far left regions of LA LA land (California), an unlikely crusader against Islam – Eric Allen Bell

I was anxious to see what had happened since his film project about the steaming controversy over the proposed Murfreesboro, TN mosque was brought to a screeching halt, by what can best be described as an ‘Islamic awakening’ Eric had from a taxicab ride with an Egyptian Copt driver. The following comes from a recent discussion I had with him.

(Note: This interview was conducted prior to the Murfreesboro judge halting construction on the mosque yesterday)

For those of you unfamiliar with Eric’s story, I will repost the background on the story of the making of the documentary “NOT WELCOME” and why it may never get finished.

Leftist writer and filmmaker, Eric Allen Bell, a regular Daily Kos contributor and an independent filmmaker for Left-leaning organizations, had his eyes opened while making a documentary about the huge controversy over the proposed 53,000 square foot Islamic Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a mega-mosque which was vehemently opposed by the community. The documentary, called ‘Not Welcome’ presents the project’s opponents as bigots and sectarian Christians, However, the film was never finished.

WARNING: This 25-min. version of the documentary was done before Eric had his eyes opened about Islam and pretty much presents the residents of Murfreesboro as rednecks and knuckle draggers.

SEE UNFINISHED DOCUMENTARY ‘ NOT WELCOME’ HERE

He intended to create a film about the “Islamophobic” evangelical Christian community until he realized that Islam is not just another religion, but rather a demonic cult which embraces child abuse, misogyny, brutality, and hatred for all other religions.

From Bell’s story The High Price of Telling the Truth in Frontpage Magazine: The epihany came months after Eric had left Tennessee and returned to Los Angeles to begin editing the 300 hours of film he had in the can that would become a feature length documentary for theatrical distribution. By his own admission, Eric sided with the Islamic community in their legal right to build a house of worship, a position he still holds, but with grave new concerns.

Eric showed a 25 minute short version of the documentary to some distributors and backers, and found someone willing to back completion of the movie. It was decided that the focus would be on “the enemy at home” that being what we were calling “Apocalyptic Christianity.” The Murfreesboro issue was to be used as something of a jumping off point to take a look at the expanding influence of the End Times Evangelical lobby in the United States and how they use their influence to manufacture consent for the bombing of oil rich Islamic countries and to influence policy on social issues. The theme would focus on the problems we have in America, with our own religious lunatic fringe, rather than on a peaceful group of non-Christians who just wanted to build a place of worship.

Yesterday, Murfreesboro judge halts construction of mosque 6 weeks before completion

According to Eric, “I felt I was protecting the underdog, going after the bullies. I really believed that I was on the right side of this thing. But something kept nagging at me on a gut level. Something about all of this didn’t quite feel right. The Arab Spring, which I supported, started to degenerate into the Islamist Winter, and I grew more and more concerned. I flew back to Nashville to shoot a conference on whether or not Islam was conducive with Democratic Values and on the way to my hotel room I learned that my cab driver was from Egypt. I asked him how he felt about the fall of Mubarak, a dictator worth over $70 billion dollars while so much of his country was living in poverty and he told me he was concerned. Concerned? Wasn’t this good news? The cab driver was a Coptic Christian and he told me that he feared for his family back home. ’If the Muslims take control, and they will, it will be very dangerous for my parents and my sisters. I’m scared for them right now.’”

“After that conversation, I started to pay more attention to the news coming from the Islamic world in the Middle East. Over the coming months I watched as the Muslim Brotherhood gained political power in Egypt. I saw that cab driver’s worst fears come true as Coptic Christians were attacked by Islamic mobs. I saw Tunisia institute Sharia, the brutal Islamic Law.”

”And it struck me. Even though these angry townspeople in Mufreesboro, TN had not articulated their concerns very well, they were only half wrong.”

On the advice of Frank Gaffney, Eric started looking at Islam differently than before. Instead of looking for answers that would support his preconceived notions, he looked for the truth. He read some of Robert Spencer’s books and came to realize that Spencer was not the crazed Islamophobic loon that those on the left and the Southern Poverty Law Center had dubbed him. Eric read the Koran twice as well as some of the hadith. He showed his backers passages that call for the killing of infidels and was told
that these verses were probably being taken out of context. He asked them to watch a documentary called “Islam: What the West Needs to Know” and pointed out that he had researched and verified the truth of what was being presented there, but they would not even watch it as they were sure in advance that it was “hate speech” and “propaganda designed to spread fear.”

“It was at this time that I went to my backers and told them that we were not making an honest documentary. I felt that everything I had put into the 25 minute short version was true, but only half true. It was critical that we also show the very real threats that exist within Islam. We needed to show that what is happening to these small communities of peaceful Muslims in America are the exception to the rule. I wanted to show what happens to countries when they gain a Muslim majority, how women are treated, that homosexuals were executed, that free speech did not exist, that the forced Islamic Law was not consistent with Democratic Values – anything and everything I could think of that ought to strike a chord with the Liberal mindset.”

And the response I received was, “Eric you are starting to sound like an Islamophobe. We don’t want to make a movie that promotes fear. Let’s just stick with the existing plan, okay?”

“As a last attempt I showed them footage of the Imam in Murfreesboro condoning stoning, admitting that Mohammed had stoned someone to death, saying that women cannot be trusted with money because they are irrational. Then I pointed out that a board member of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro was investigated after pictures from his MySpace page had surfaced indicating his strong sympathies for Hamas. I was reminded that Hamas was also a political party which was voted in Democratically and that I needed to make a choice – either stick with the original blueprint or else give the money back and go find myself another backer. So I did. I walked.”

MURFREESBORO: One of the frequent anti-mosque protests between the pro-Islamists and the patriots

According to The American Muslim, “Bell’s article looks like something out of a loony anti-Muslim blog like BareNakedIslam, AtlasShrugs, or JihadWatch.”

Eric told me he gave back all the money he had received, which essentially made his two years of work on the documentary, a total loss, and one which ended up costing him a lot of money.

So why not get another backer? Not so easy in Hollywood, where most of the money people are in lock step with with the Left. But more troubling were the threats Eric and his family started getting when his change of heart about Islam became public knowledge. Eric was not at liberty to reveal the nature of the threats, but they were enough that he had to make special security arrangement for himself and his family. We’ve all seen the kind of threats that bloggers such as Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch and yours truly receive on a regular basis from Muslims, so you can be sure his were as bad, if not worse, because of his high public profile. It would not surprise me if some of the threats came from people on the Left, who are loyal allies of the Islamic community.

In several discussion with the local imam in Murfreesboro, Eric learned about the way Islam is practiced here. The imam seemed to imply that they practice a kind of modified Islam here now. As has happened in the UK and other parts of the US already, Muslims are quiet until their numbers grow large enough. Then, they feel emboldened to make demands on the state for imposition of sharia law in their local courts, request that public schools give Muslim students a room for prayer during the school day, and for schools to close down for Muslim holidays. In the UK, Sweden, and Germany, they have NO-GO zones that are sharia-compliant and non-Muslims are not welcome.

Eric showed the backers footage of the imam condoning stoning, admitting that Mohammed had stoned someone to death, and saying that women cannot be trusted with money because they are irrational. And there was more that the imam told him ‘off the record.’ But the Hollywood types were not convinced.

I asked Eric what he would do to convince more people on the Left that there is a real threat from Islam to our democratic republic and to all democracies in the West? Seeing as how it is difficult enough to get people on the Right to buy into the idea that even so-called “moderate” Muslims follow the same teachings as the terrorists, and deep down would prefer to have at least a little sharia in their lives, how could he ever hope to reach those on the Left?

Eric admits there is little hope of swaying those on the far Left, whose anti-American, pro-UN, anti-capitalism, pro-entitlement state beliefs are shared by many Muslims. However, because the mainstream Left consider themselves champions of human rights, it might be possible to reach them if they would look at Islam as a human rights catastrophe, that the Islamic world is enemy #1 of women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights, and generally, one of the biggest abusers of human rights in the world.

Right now, the Left puts Muslims in the same category as blacks were in before the Civil Rights movement. It’s a familiar place, where they can bring out their favorite attack tool – calling conservatives ‘racists’ and ‘Islamophobes’ for being against creeping Islamization. Despite the fact that Islam is not a race, and fear of Islam is not a phobia but a justified reaction to evil, the Left insists on framing the argument in those old familiar terms which have worked so well in the past. Eric hopes he can persuade them that most everything about Islam is diametrically opposed to the values and customs of the Left – women’s liberation, anti-slavery, secularism, gay marriage, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, smoking, drinking, enjoying music and dance, freedom of or from religion, and most of all, freedom of expression.

They support Palestinians because they see them as the underdog and Israel as a big, bad bully (the new favorite adhominem of the Left). They never stop to think that all the rights that the Left hold so dear are found in only one country in the Middle East – Israel. Once again, the Left takes sides with those who demand the most but want to do the least for themselves.

Eric believes it is possible to reframe the argument to make it a human rights issue and not an Islam vs Christianity/Judaism issue. I’m not so sure. Personally, I believe that he may have some luck with the liberal Left, but not the far Left, as the far Left is every bit as fascist as the Islamofascists- both wishing for the destruction of America as we know it.

I asked Eric if he would ever finish his documentary, ‘Not Welcome?’ He said that even if he could get the money to do an expanded version which would include the truth about Islam and justification for what he originally thought was an irrational fear of Muslims and opposition to the mosque, he probably could not get it into the movie theaters or on Cable TV either. When I mentioned the political correctness re: Islam, even coming from FOX News, he defended people like Hannity and O’Reilly, saying that they have an obligation to try to avoid boycotts of sponsors and complaints to the station, if they want to keep their jobs. Attacking Islam too hard is a sure way to get yourself fired.

Back in April, Eric put out an announcement saying he would not finish the film, ‘NotWelcome’ because of threats to his life and his family. He expects that he is probably around #1000 on the Muslim hit wish list.

In his research, Eric found that up to 80% of American mosques are teaching anti-Americanism, Islamic supremacy, and outright Jew-hatred. Yet he still supports the building of the Murfreesboro mosque, as a first amendment issue in that they have the right to build a house of worship here. On the other hand, he favors keeping a close eye on Muslim political and mosque activities as well as legal challenges. That means, unlike most of the Left, Eric supports the NYPD’s system of surveillance of mosques and Muslims in America.

Not surprisingly, Eric has lost a lot of friends on the Left since he went public with this new thinking about Islam. I wondered if the negative publicity Eric got from the Left for publishing articles they consider ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobic’ had lost him income and followers? He said, friends and acquaintances told me I had become a “hatemonger, a fear monger and an Islamophobe.”

The articles he posted on the DAILY KOS: “Loonwatch.com and Radical Islam” and “How and Why Loonwatch.com is a Terrorist Spin Control Network lost him thousands of followers on his FACEBOOK page, but gained him as many new ones at the same time. He was banned for awhile at the Daily Kos, but says he did post a few stories on the Occupy Wall Street movement until he became disillusioned with the way it was being conducted. However, he seems to be banished for good from Michael Moore’s website. Interestingly, the piece that got him banned from Daily Kos was called, “Are You In Favor of Human Rights?”

Said Eric, “The Comments section of Daily Kos made me feel like I was attending my own funeral. It was like a public stoning. There wasn’t much in the way of responding to any of the points laid out in my article but hundreds of comments accusing me of being “right wing” a “bigot” and an “lslamophobe”. This was disappointing.”

“There were also 2 Daily Kos articles written in response attacking me personally, another Loonwatch article where someone suggested I must be from Tennessee and have no education, etc. And once again, my name was put out on the street through a network of Islamic Blogs, including the landing page for CAIR, using a form of Islamic double speak which translated to any serious Jihadist means “enemy of Allah” and “insulting Islam.” And we know what happens to them.

It was even worse for Eric at Loonwatch.com. Yes, the same Loonwatch that has taken several nasty swipes at Bare Naked Islam and seems to have a an obsessive-compulsive disorder bordering on the maniacal, in their fervor to malign Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch.

As Eric tells it, ”I received an email from Loonwatch.com with an article showing my name and a photograph of my face, going out to much of the Islamic world, calling me the ‘Loon at Large.’ This article was picked up by IslamophobiaToday.com and TheAmericanMuslim.org – later being repurposed by numerous Islamic blogs around the world, including in places where we all know what happens to anyone who is perceived to be the enemy of Allah or who dares to insult Islam.”

I asked about the administer of Loonwatch, whom I suspected is not a Muslim himself. He’s pretty sure it is not Muslim run, as the administrator goes by the nane ‘Danios,’ but perhaps it is Muslim-funded by either CAIR and/or the Saudis. Pretty much everything posted about Islam on Loonwatch sounds as if it was written by CAIR, intended to “provide a smoke screen for terrorists.”

Eric has nothing but disdain for the Muslim pressure group, Hamas-linked CAIR, and feels they control the media reporting on all things Islam. He was shocked to see the media circus they caused over the film, ‘The Third Jihad,’ which was used as part of the NYPD’s counter terrorism training. He studied the film and could find nothing that was not verifiable by well-documented facts. Yet CAIR was able get the film banned and forced removal of all references to Islam and terrorism in counter terrorism courses used by the FBI and law enforcement. Eric is worried that CAIR’s chokehold on the left and on the current administration, could result in getting legislation passed that would make most criticism of Islam a ‘hate crime.’ I told him it wouldn’t be a surprise if CAIR was behind the threats made on him and his family.

Eric understands that there is no radical or moderate Islam. He prefers to call those whose action are extreme “Devout Muslims.” I mentioned that Zuhdi Jasser also calls himself a devout Muslim, and we agreed that he should refer to himself as a bad Muslim because he insults the religion on a daily basis. No Muslim would call Jasser devout, and many would likely prefer to call him ‘dead.’

For someone on the Left, Eric has several conservative-compatible views. He would like to see more immigration control on who is allowed to enter from Muslim countries. He worries about our first amendment rights being restricted when it comes to Islam and he detests the honored guest status afforded to al-Qaeda founders from the Muslim Brotherhood. As for anti-sharia legislation, he believes it should become law in every state.

We touched on Eric’s opinion of the Prophet Mohammed and it is one shared by most readers at BNI. As he states in the Frontpage article, “Where do I stand on Islam? Let’s look at its founder – a man who raped a 9 year old girl, a slave owner, a leader who ordered people to be tortured, for adulterers to be stoned, for countless nonbelievers to be beheaded, a killer, a warmonger who spread his “religion of peace” by the sword, a man who suffered from hallucinations of voices telling him to do violent things, a tyrant, a homicidal maniac perhaps the equivalent of 100,000 Osama Bin Ladens. And this sadistic lunatic is considered to be the “ideal man” in Islam. What more needs to be said about Islam than that?”

Indeed, Eric, indeed.

Read the entire article ‘The High Price of Telling the Truth About Islam’ here: Front Page Magazine He can also be seen in a debate with a Muslim on The Glazov Gang, Frontpage’s television program. His website is: Global One TV

Below is Eric’s appearance on Michael Coren’s “The Arena” on Sun TV: