A LoneStarTimes.com investigation has uncovered more extensive ideological and financial ties between militant Islamist groups and former Houston Rockets star Hakeem Olajuwon than have previously been reported.

Documents reviewed by LST indicate that since 1997 to the present, Olajuwon has served as a director of the El-Farouq Foundation and provided at least $450,000 to advance its mission.

Olajuwon’s El-Farouq Foundation is the parent entity and principal financial backer of the Masjid Al-Farouq, a mosque on Houston’s near west-side.

Masjid Al-Farouq was condemned earlier this week by Freedom House, a non-partisan human rights watchdog in Washington D.C., for distributing literature and Islamic study texts financed by Saudi Arabia’s extremist religious authorities that promote…

… a fanatically bigoted, xenophobic and sometimes violent ideology. These publications articulate (Wahhabism’s) wrathful dogma, rejecting the coexistence of different religions and explicitly condemning Christians, Jews, all other non-Muslims, as well as non-Wahhabi Muslims. The various Saudi publications gathered for this study state that it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews and warn against imitating, befriending, or helping such “infidels” in any way, or taking part in their festivities and celebrations. They instill contempt for America because the United States is ruled by legislated civil law rather than by totalitarian Wahhabi-style Islamic law. Some of the publications collected for this study direct Muslims not to take American citizenship as long as the country is ruled by infidels and tells them, while abroad, above all, to work for the creation of an Islamic state. The Saudi textbooks and documents spread throughout American mosques preach a Nazi-like hatred for Jews, treat the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact, and avow that the Muslim’s duty is to eliminate the state of Israel. Regarding women, the Saudi state publications in America instruct that they should be veiled, segregated from men and barred from certain employment and roles.

Tax records reveal that in 2001 the El-Farouq Foundation donated $6,781 to the Holy Land Foundation in Richardson.

HLF has been identified by federal authorities as the primary U.S. fund raising arm for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks in Israel that have killed scores of people and injured hundreds, including Americans.

Additionally, a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article (6/21/98) places Olajuwon at a 1998 HLF charity bowling tournament, thus establishing that his participation in HLF events occurred more frequently than on the single occasion previously reported by the Associated Press.

Federal authorities say they are not investigating Olajuwon for his charitable contributions and stress that terrorist-connected front-groups preyed on unwitting Muslim donors, especially pre-9/11.

Related Links

Original Associated Press report on Olajuwon contributions to terror-front groups

Freedom House report on Saudi Publications in American Mosques (pdf)

The ceasefire.

After his most recent health scare, the Holy Father is getting back to work:

Pope John Paul II will return to the Vatican today, after 10 days in Gemelli Hospital, where he was treated for breathing difficulties brought on by the flu.

In a statement released on February 10, Joaquin Navarro-Valls reported: "The acute laryngeal tracheitis that was the reason for urgently admitting the Holy Father to the hospital has healed."

I’m happy that this story omitted the "frail pope" phrase that we’ve seen far too often. It bugs me when people portray the pope as a delicate little flower.

This is one tough hombre.

He worked in the Polish resistance during the Nazi occupation of that country. His Cold War-era efforts were crucial to the Solidarity movement’s victory over Soviet domination.

He survived four gunshot wounds in an assassination attempt. Then he publicly and personally forgave the man who tried to kill him. (By the way, the would-be assassin is wishing for the pope’s recovery.) He’s traveled to just about every country in the world that would have him.

When His Holiness returns to his Maker, it won’t be from weakness or frailty. It will be a reward for his strength.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal, today the New York Times.

Keep this steady drumbeat of national media attention up and pretty soon the biggest "malfunction" most Americans will associate with Houston will be our wrecker policy, not Miss Nasty’s wardrobe.

Special thanks to the pick-up driving gun-toting yahoo who provided colorful enough commentary so as to become fodder in the East Coast Liberal Media’s stereotyping of all Texans as… well… pick-up driving gun-toting yahoos:

Tom Bregel, 71, a contractor who told the City Council that the measure might drive him to draw his gun on a wrecker, said later in an interview that he had a permit to carry a concealed 9 millimeter pistol.

"My truck is my business, my portable office," he said. "I do have the constitutional right to protect my life and my property. If anyone tries to hook me up, he’ll have to call the police."

Nicely done.

UPDATE

Here’s a riddle: How do you tell a "True Texan" from a false one?

Answer– a true Texan is confident, classy, proud, and has a good sense of humor. By way of example, K.E. Salvage Sr.:

Well this pickup driving gun toting texan story might not be all that bad in the end. It might keep a few of those dam yankee carpetbaggers out of Texas for fear of their lifes!  We have to darn many of them now as it is, especially the media types!

Another example of a true Texan– Mr. Luckie Ford:

Amen for Mr. Tom Bregel!  Maybe they will continue to hear that is the way it is in Texas and they will keep their liberal, tree-hugging, Hillary-luvin butts up on the east coast!

By way of contrast, here’s a pathetic, anonymous, anti-semitic little nugget from a Mr. "Lost Fan":

Uh, David, you ARE in Texas.  Real Texans are not yankee jew boys like you. If you are so bothered by what your left coast cronies think about Texas, go back to where ever you came from. No one here will miss you - oh, besides Dan Patrick. We REAL Texans do not appreciate your snide remarks about us. Leave.

Now hold on just a darn-tootin minute there cowboy! I don’t much cotton to that Freudian-Jew-Psychoanalysis phooey, but you sure seem to be overcompensating for something. "Real Texan" this and "go back where you came from" that. You sure you ain’t from Arkansas?

I’ve lived in Texas for close to 10 years, and love it. And I’m willing to wager that if I showed up at the Alamo with my group of "True Texans" and you showed up with yours… my group would be a whole lot bigger.