Pamela Geller's Blog, page 997

Muslim Dances on the Central Altar of Florence's Cathedral

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Muslim (from Somalia) jumps up on the alter of the Florence Cathedral and dances.

Where is the worldwide outrage?  A fringe pastor tweets something stupid and the world is set afire.

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral church (Duomo) of Florence, Italy, begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed structurally in 1436.

The cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Florence, whose archbishop is currently Giuseppe Betori.

On last Monday night a Muslim jumped up and danced on the alter of the Florence cathedral. Here are the exclusive pictures of the tgt sensational incident Monday, 11 October morning in the Duomo of Florence. Check this video out. More news out of Italy here.

Here's the google translation of the news article: (hat tip Paolo)

In the barracks he never stopped reciting a prayer in Arabic

....this morning reached the altar of the Duomo in Florence and we rose above. Then he made a sort of dance. The stranger, who escaped the vigilance of the keepers of the cathedral, was blocked by the police station Uffizi.

. The man does not speak Italian, but prayed all the time even in the Arabic of owner where the investigations were conducted. For the police would have said to live in a country in Scandinavia.
 
The military has not challenged any crime. The refugee, dressed in sneakers, jeans, shirt and jacket, is confused between the faithful and visitors who crowded the basilica, then escaping the supervision of the guards, reached the altar, and there rose above a sort of starting ritual dance.

What would become of a Christian that had done such a thing at a mosque in Marrakesh?

Mutual respect, right? Mutual understanding? Reciprocity. That'w what the West is taught. But what is the ummah taught. Burn embassies. Slaughter on insult.

Islamic Supremacism, Harassment and Intimidation at Universities: Muslim students at Top university 'are preaching hard-line extremism,' terror experts warn

This is no surprise. It has been going on for years, thanks to the powerful cocktail of massive infusions of Muslim cash donations from the Saudis, in tandem with the stranglehold the left has on faculty, syllabus, curriculum, etc. That a nazi like Edward Said is an authority on anything on university campuses speaks volumes.

It mimics that same leftist (national socialism)/Islamic (Mufti al-Husseini) alliance of the Nazis. It's the same template.

And while this particular story is in the UK, it is here in the US too. Doubt me? Check out any lecture given by Robert Spencer, myself, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish (when not canceled due to Muslim pressure) at an American university. Or better yet, hold a rally in support of Israel, if you dare. I have been covering the anti-America, anti-Israel, pro-jihad rallies for years, and I have always benn morbidly amused by "Queers for Palestine" or "breasts not bombs": these tools would be slaughtered, stoned, or publicly hanged under Islamic law.

The Islamic/leftist machine gestates, percolates, propagates, and recruits at college universities nationwide. They are moving into K-12 via by rewriting history in our public school textbooks. Defenders of freedom and patriots are fighting back. We need much more of that. Teach your children well. We will need every single individual to fight this onslaught.

Look at how Muslims advise public school Muslim parents. For example:

TIP #4: SOLIDIFY YOUR CONTACT WITH THE SCHOOL AND TEACHER

Additionally, you can request that one day, the classroom or entire school can have Muslim guest speakers come and make a presentation about Islam.

Also, refer the teacher to resources such as Islamic centers, the Council on Islamic Education, and other organizations.

Furthermore, consider donating a Quran and copies of An Introduction to Islamic History and Teaching About Islam: A Handbook for Educators to your child's school.

Here's our future, happening now in the UK:

Islamic students at top university 'are preaching hard-line extremism,' terror experts warn Daily Mail

Think tank finds evidence of moderate Muslims being radicalised and Jewish students intimidated

Radical Islamic extremism is being openly practised at a leading university campus, a report today claimed.

Think tank Quilliam said they had evidence of hard-line Islamist ideology being promoted through the leadership of the university's student Islamic Society at City University in central London.

The group had intimidated and harassed staff, students and members of minority groups, it was claimed.

A think tank says it has evidence of hard-line Islamist ideology being promoted in City University's Islamic Society (file picture)

The counter-extremism think tank said they had evidence of the president of City University's Islamic Society, (ISoc) openly preaching extremism during prayers held on the campus during the 2009/10 academic year.

They said the president - Saleh Patel, was recorded saying: 'When they say to us 'the Islamic state teaches to cut the hand of the thief', yes it does!

'And it also teaches us to stone the adulterer.

 

More...

Multiculturalism in Germany has 'utterly failed', claims Chancellor Angela Merkel

'When they tell us that the Islamic state tells us and teaches us to kill the apostate, yes it does!

'Because this is what Allah and his messenger have taught us and this is the religion of Allah and it is Allah who legislates and only Allah has the right to legislate.'

'When a person leaves one prayer, one prayer intentionally, he should be imprisoned for three days and three nights and told to repent.

'And if he doesn't repent and offer his prayer then he should be killed. And the difference of opinion lies with regards to how he should be killed not as to what he is - a kafir or a Muslim'.

According to students interviewed for the report, the actions of leading members of the ISoc made members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Society (LGBT) feel 'scared'.

Some Jewish students felt 'intimidated', and the group's actions forced ordinary Muslim students to adopt hard-line Islamic practices which led to some Muslim students publishing an open letter complaining that their religion had been 'hijacked' by the ISoc.

Report author Lucy James, said: 'It is deeply shocking that such extremism is being openly promoted on a university campus in central London.

'Such extremism can create dangerous divisions on campuses and, if not tackled, may even lead to terrorism.

'University heads need to recognise this problem and take the lead in tackling it.'

Hate Crime

Atlas readers know I am fiercely against the idea of "hate crime." All crime is hate and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

When you start to delineate what's in a person's mind or heart, aka thought crime, who decides? Who decides what's hate and what's not? The government? The Organizaton of the Islamic Conference? CAIR? Are things so bad that a rubber porky pig is a hate crime? Yes. And it will get worse. They create tales out of whole cloth to prosecute the innocent who dare speak out against oppression and subjugation.

But crimes against Jews, Chrsitians, Hindus, Whites, Asians (as in Asian, not the buzzword for Musim) etc ........*yawn.*

The hypocrisy loooms large. Here's a letter I thought I should share with you. I expect the gutless congressman who witnessed his Muslim constituents dancing on 9/11/01 will do nothing but hide beneath his desk. If this continues -- auxiliary law enforcement will be necessary.

The idea that Muslims would torment and harass an elderly, disabled woman because she is a non-Muslim is debased and grotesque. The writer, a PhD, wrote to her Congressman again because of yet another incident of harassment today, one of many she has had to endure as she walks through a majority Muslim neighborhood in Paterson, NJ:

Dear Congressman Pascrell:

Greetings and best wishes for your, and our, continued success in the
upcoming election. I know you are busy because of election time, so I
will keep this letter brief and to the point. I plan to share this
letter with Pamela Geller, a prominent American Civil Rights activist,
so I will repeat information already known to you, Congressman
Pascrell, in order to make the letter fully comprehensible to Ms.
Geller.

I am writing to inform you of the constant harassment, even dangerous
harassment, I endure as I walk the three miles from my apartment in
Artist's Housing, a federally funded Artist's Housing project, along
Main Street in Paterson, NJ, to Corrado's Market, on Main Street.
Corrado's is, of course, a legendary local market, unsurpassed for its
fresh produce.

I walk through a predominantly Muslim neighborhood near the
intersection of Main Street and Crooks Ave. This area gained
international infamy when Paterson Muslims celebrated in the streets
on September 11, 2001, an event which, according to internet news
reports, you yourself, Congressman Pascrell, witnessed.

I am moved to write today because a man seated at one of the many
sidewalk chairs on Main Street impeded my ability to walk down the
street, and called out, "Look out! Look out! Here comes Jesus Christ!"
as I approached on the sidewalk. This man, about sixty, speaking with
a heavy Turkish accent, with face stubble, began to repeatedly make
body motions with his hands across his face and chest in a mockery of
the act of a Christian blessing oneself. This occurred today, Sunday,
October 17, 2010, at approximately four p.m., as I walked from my
apartment to Corrado's.

This is a constant occurrence on this Muslim-dominated stretch of
road. In the past, I have been mocked by other religious names. Once a
much younger man, in a group of men speaking Arabic, stopped me, and
mocked me as "Moses," as his friends surrounded me. On another
occasion, witnessed by a police officer, a Muslim man hit me with his
SUV, knocking me to the ground. The police officer took and filed a
full report.

As you know, I am an older woman, and physically handicapped. I need a
cane to walk. These Muslim men target an older, physically
handicapped, isolated American woman for their abuse.

I live in Paterson, a dangerous city. I commute on foot to work on
WPUNJ. I pass housing projects inhabited largely by unemployed African
Americans. This area is not pleasant, but it has not proven dangerous.
In my many years of commuting on foot, no African American has menaced
me the way the Muslim men on Main Street do on a regular basis.

I am writing to you, Congressman Pascrell, rather than to our mayor,
because you have power on the federal level. I want to know that you
know that this is going on in Paterson and in New Jersey. I want you
to think about this when you consider matters pertaining to
immigration, to multiculturalism, and to the repeated refrains that
Muslims are subject to "hate crimes" in America. Certainly a man
stopping me on a sidewalk and mocking Christianity is a hate crime.
Will you, or will any other elected New Jersey official, do anything
about it?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Danusha REDACTED PhD

You can write the Congressman here.

Next Cartoonist to Receive a Fatwa............ Mallard Filmore

 

Filmore gets it ..... let's hope not literally. "Muslims Who Repudiate Violence" (hat tip Mark)

France Warned Islamic Attack Imminent

 Paris was "...monitoring a certain number of people who study at extremist Koranic institutes, monitoring people likely to return" to France.

It is morbidly amusing to witness the Saudis, responsible for the largest portion of the funding and spread of jihad in the West, warn France of an impending jihadist attack. They want their women in those cloth coffins! It must be the ban that gives France favored hate status in Islam this week.

If the Saudis wanted to help, they would close the tens of thousands of the mosques they built that preach hate, racism, and incitment to violence. If the Saudis really wanted to help, they would shut down ICNA and all those terror-funding "charities" that fund jihad. If the Saudis really wanted to help, perhaps they might let their women drive, for starters. Maybe allow non-Muslims into Mecca? Or stop lashing women for taking tea with someone other than a relative? Or drop the boycott against the Jews?

Don't get me started.

How the West got into the position of crawling into a fetal position until the next Islamic attack is one that will leave historians (depending upon who writes the history books) scratching their heads for centuries.

French minister: Saudis warn of new terror threat Yahoo News

PARIS (AFP) – Saudi security services warned several days ago about an Al-Qaeda threat to Europe and in particular France, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said Sunday.

Several days ago European intelligence agencies received "a new message from the Saudi services which indicated that Al-Qaeda's branch on the Arabian Peninsula was possibly active or planned to be active" and was targeting "the European continent and in particular France", Hortefeux said in a radio and television interview.

"The threat is real and we remain alert," said the minister, adding that France's security threat level remains at one level below the highest level of scarlet.

The Saudi warning follows several warnings in the past weeks.

Hortefeux said on September 9 there was a warning from Interpol and then a week later a second warning of a possible attack by a female suicide bomber.

Western security officials have also warned that Al-Qaeda may be planning attacks in Europe similar to those that struck Mumbai in 2008.

UK: Massive Voter Fraud to Elect Islamic Extremist with Supremacist, Racist Ties Next Executive Mayor in Control of Billion Dollar Budget

In my New York Times interview here, I repeated what I have said and thought for some time, that the first country that will be Islamic in Europe will be the U.K.

This terrible story just validates my prediction. An Islamic supremacist with fundamentalist links will most likely be elected Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlet council, with control of over a billion dollar budget.

Mind you, he was previously fired for extremist ties. But the Islamic machine went into overdrive and fraudulently gamed the system (shocka!).

Tower Hamlets moved from a conventional leader system to a mayoralty this year as a result of a campaign spearheaded by the Muslim extremsit group the IFE. IFE's Abu Talha told an undercover reporter for The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4's Dispatches: "The mayor is going to have a lot more control. That's why we need to get someone, one of our brothers, in there. Which we will do."

The law says that if 5 per cent of the electorate petition a council, it must hold a referendum on changing to a mayoral system.

Earlier this year another prominent IFE activist, Abjol Miah, organised such a petition.

A total of 99.3 per cent of the signatures were Muslim names, in a borough which is only a third Muslim

Council officers found that almost half were "invalid", with entire pages of names and addresses written in the same handwriting and around 5,000 not even appearing on the electoral register.

But the dhimmi court allowed it just the same. Ameroca, pay attention.

Read on. And bear in mind that according to the media and the political elites, the EDL is the problem. The campaign of destruction against the EDL (made up of Jews, Christians, Blacks, Hindus, Sikhs, et al) fighting Islamic supremacism and imperialism would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.

Tower Hamlets extremist vote poses Ed Miliband's first big election test Telegraph hat tip Janice

A man with close links to Islamic fundamentalism and the backing of prominent racists could this week be elected as the executive mayor of a council, with almost total control over its £1 billion budget.

Lutfur Rahman was sacked by the Labour Party last month as its candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets amid deep concerns about his links with a Muslim supremacist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), and a number of powerful local businessmen.

Mr Rahman also signed up entire families of "sham" paper Labour members – some of whom do not even support the party – to win nomination as Labour's candidate.

Mr Rahman is now running as an independent and his supporters say he is "hopeful" of victory.

"Things look very good," said one of his major business backers, Shiraj Haque, a millionaire restaurateur.

Labour sources said the contest between Mr Rahman and their new candidate, Helal Abbas, was "extremely close" and would depend on turnout in Thursday's election.

Unlike a conventional leader, a directly-elected mayor has almost complete power over a council's finances and cannot be controlled, checked or sacked by councillors.

Tower Hamlets moved from a conventional leader system to a mayoralty this year as a result of a campaign spearheaded by the IFE.

In secret filming earlier this year, Abu Talha, an IFE activist, told an undercover reporter for The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4's Dispatches: "The mayor is going to have a lot more control. That's why we need to get someone, one of our brothers, in there. Which we will do."

The law says that if 5 per cent of the electorate petition a council, it must hold a referendum on changing to a mayoral system.

Earlier this year another prominent IFE activist, Abjol Miah, organised such a petition.

A total of 99.3 per cent of the signatures were Asian names, in a borough which is only a third Asian.

Council officers found that almost half were "invalid", with entire pages of names and addresses written in the same handwriting and around 5,000 not even appearing on the electoral register.

Nonetheless, enough of the signatures were ruled to be valid.

The mayoral referendum was granted and passed in May after an intensive campaign involving the IFE, Mr Haque and others who have now emerged as backers of Mr Rahman.

The literature advocating a "yes" vote in the referendum campaign used an identical logo and typeface to some of Mr Rahman's leaflets in the mayoral campaign.

Defeat in strongly-Labour Tower Hamlets would be a humiliation for the party's new leader, Ed Miliband, in what is his first electoral test. However, it would also raise even more serious concerns about radical Islam's political power in the UK.

According to one of its own leaflets, the IFE – based at the hardline East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets – wants to change the "very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam."

2010 or 1938?

Excellent historical parallel over at CiF watch here. It bears noting that this is who Johnson is writing for now, a rabidly anti-semitic publicaton extolling this century's Reich.I am his whole career now, happy I could help :)

Here's the Guardian's celebratory depiction of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's welcome in Lebanon recently.

Ground Zero Mosque Thug El-Gamal A Deadbeat, Bank Sues: Unrepaid Loan

What a pair, the extremist slumlord and the deadbeat mug. Sort of fits perfectly with the idea of the Ground Zero Islamic supremacist mosque, doesn't it? No decent human being would consider such a stab in the eye.

The thug El-Gamal, developer of the Ground Zero mosque, is a deadbeat. Taxes and now loans. Mr. $150 million dollar mosque man, who was evicted from his office for non-payment of rent, has another big debt he skipped out on, an unrepaid loan. Back in August, I posted that the thug El-Gamal hadn't paid his taxes. He owed $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, and failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.

That default is a violation of El-Gamal's lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

The lease agreement, obtained by The Post, specifies that El-Gamal's company pay taxes on the property and submit receipts to Con Ed.

The utility said it would have to review any possible lease violations.

Perhaps the thug El-Gamal should stop menacing moderate Muslims who oppose his triumphal mosque at Ground Zero and start paying his bills. Can say debtor's prison? Just add it to his rap sheet.

Mayor Gloomberg ought to be ashamed of himself. He has this lowlife to Gracie Mansion for dinner. Got that?

More Trouble for Mosque Man NY Post (hat tip Davida)

The money woes keep growing for a developer of the Ground Zero mosque.

Valley National Bank is suing Sharif El-Gamal and his real-estate company, Soho Properties, seeking $95,778 plus interest for an unrepaid loan. The firm took out a $100,000 line of credit, guaranteed by El-Gamal, from the bank in 2008, but defaulted in early 2009, according to court papers.

A spokesman for El-Gamal declined to comment yesterday.

El-Gamal moved from the firm's offices in September after his landlord initiated eviction proceedings over $39,000 in back rent.

He also failed to pay his city taxes in January and July, but agreed to a payment plan in September for $270,000, including interest.

El-Gamal has been a leader in the controversial proposal to build a mosque and community center on Park Place, two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

 

Ground Zero Mosque Thug El-Gamal A Deadbeat, Bank Sues-Unrepaid Loan

What a pair, the extremist slumlord and the deadbeat mug. Sort of fits perfectly with the idea of the Ground Zero Islamic supremacist mosque, doesn't it? No decent human being would consider such a stab in the eye.

The thug El-Gamal, developer of the Ground Zero mosque, is a deadbeat. Taxes and now loans. Mr. $150 million dollar mosque man, who was evicted from his office for non-payment of rent, has another big debt he skipped out on, an unrepaid loan. Back in August, I posted that the thug El-Gamal hadn't paid his taxes. He owed $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, and failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.

That default is a violation of El-Gamal's lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

The lease agreement, obtained by The Post, specifies that El-Gamal's company pay taxes on the property and submit receipts to Con Ed.

The utility said it would have to review any possible lease violations.

Perhaps the thug El-Gamal should stop menacing moderate Muslims who oppose his triumphal mosque at Ground Zero and start paying his bills. Can say debtor's prison? Just add it to his rap sheet.

Mayor Gloomberg ought to be ashamed of himself. He has this lowlife to Gracie Mansion for dinner. Got that?

More Trouble for Mosque Man NY Post (hat tip Davida)

The money woes keep growing for a developer of the Ground Zero mosque.

Valley National Bank is suing Sharif El-Gamal and his real-estate company, Soho Properties, seeking $95,778 plus interest for an unrepaid loan. The firm took out a $100,000 line of credit, guaranteed by El-Gamal, from the bank in 2008, but defaulted in early 2009, according to court papers.

A spokesman for El-Gamal declined to comment yesterday.

El-Gamal moved from the firm's offices in September after his landlord initiated eviction proceedings over $39,000 in back rent.

He also failed to pay his city taxes in January and July, but agreed to a payment plan in September for $270,000, including interest.

El-Gamal has been a leader in the controversial proposal to build a mosque and community center on Park Place, two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

 

Who Let the Dogs Out?

It's been a week since the Sunday Times ran its profile on me and the attacks from the leftist/Islamic machine have been unremitting. They are rapid not just online, but in print and across the pond. What are they so afraid of? A little truth. Are they so in a hurry to be living under the sharia and I and my colleagues stand in their way?

 It gives yo a very good idea how unwilling they are to engage in genuine "dialogue" to explore the most pressing and critical issues of our time.  Instead, they destroy the messenger, pervert the message, pat themselves on the back grinning, 'our work is done here.'

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avid the consqueneces of avoiding reality (paraphrasing Rand.)

Daniel Greenfield does a lovely mop up of one such hot mess - jihad Jeff over at The Atlantic. How much longer these clowns can stay in business is anyone's guess.

The Koran Says What Daniel Greenfield (hat tip Jane)

At The Atlantic, J.J. Goldberg produced one of the more misguided addenda to the New York Times' Bash Pamela Geller week, by manufacturing a thin narrative, and then addressing it rather than Geller's actual arguments. And then forwarding it to Gerecht, who isn't familiar with Geller. This practice of creating "strawmen", of arguing against what critics of Islam are supposedly saying, than what they are actually saying, has become a notoriously common tool for the liberal media, which censors even cartoons that don't feature Mohammed, and is certainly eager to censor arguments that do.

The attack typically rephrases the arguments in a tone somewhere between mocking and ominous, at once undermining the argument by ridiculing it and associating it with Anti-Semitism, particularly ridiculous as Geller is Jewish, and Islam is undeniably Anti-Semitic.

In a recent New York Times interview, the blogger Pamela Geller leveled many serious charges against Islam; she stated that Muslims curse Jews and Christians during their five-times-a-day prayer; that the only good Muslim is a secular Muslim; and most perniciously, she said that the Qur'an has never been properly translated, insinuating that it contains dark secrets about Muslims and their religious responsibilities.
There's a huge reach from, "it was never properly translated" to "it contains dark secrets." I feel the Torah has never been properly translated either. That doesn't mean it contains dark secrets. It means it's never been properly translated. I can say the same thing about many novels in languages which don't share much common linguistic ancestry with English.

Wafa Sultan, who was raised an Arab Muslim, has said the same thing. As Gerecht himself points out, plenty of Koran translations do show that Islam is hostile to non-Muslims. There are some PC Koran translations, but the most popular ones used by Muslims are non-PC. The diversity of translations used by Muslims shows there isn't necessarily an ideal translation. Because in some cases there isn't even full agreement on what the Koran means. Stating that there should be an ideal translation means that Muslims and non-Muslims who don't know Arabic should know what the Koran says and doesn't say. 

But J.J. Goldberg makes it his thesis that Geller claimed that the Koran contains "dark secrets." Now I don't claim to read her mind, but this is the quote, Goldberg is working off.

Now I also believe that a true translation, an accurate translation of the Koran, is really not available in English, according to many of the Islamic scholars that I've spoken to. That's deeply troubling. And I don't think that many westernized Muslims know when they pray five times a day that they're cursing Christians and Jews five times a day. I don't think they know that.

I don't claim to be able to read Geller's mind, but her reference was most likely to, the opening of the Koran, "Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the (path) of those who earn thine anger nor of those who go astray." 

This is generally thought to mean Jews as being the ones who earned Allah's anger, and Christians being the ones who have gone astray. Robert Spencer has gone into some detail on the subject here. The question here is less about literal translation and more about commonly understood references. Some translations of the Koran do add these words for clarification. Some maintain the original language. 

But this is less about dark secrets, than it is about clarity. No one needs to argue the meaning of this verse in particular, to show that Islam commands Muslims to conquer and rule over non-Muslims. And Muslims who are familiar with the Koran, learn contextual meanings, rather than just the exact meaning of words. They are taught what the phrase means, rather than just being given a dictionary. This is not unusual with most religious works in most of the major religions. Any Westernized Muslims who do not know that the reference is to Jews and Christians, are either the product of a non-mainstream Islamic education, or no Islamic education whatsoever. 

While one need not point to this verse to find that the Koran is hostile to Jews and Christians. The centrality of it however is what makes it so vital in Muslim religious life.

Gerecht has the unenviable task of making sense of J.J. Goldberg's speculations about what Geller said (rather than Goldberg emailing and asking her) and I have the unenviable task of making sense of that whole mess. A mess that has less to do with the Koran, than it does with silencing straightforward criticism of Islam, to only allow criticism of Islamic extremism. 

Late in the piece, Gerecht makes the arguable claim that Muslims don't think about Jews and Christians when they pray and don't need to hate Jews and Christians to be Muslims.

And about Muslim prayer: I certainly have no perfect way of knowing what Muslims think when they pray, but I really do think they know what they're doing. If westernized Muslims are facing the Almighty, they know what's in their hearts. Devout Muslims need not hate Jews and Christians to worship the Creator.
While Jews and Christians are not the focus of Muslim prayers, neither are they absent from them as bad examples, as has already been shown above. This is another strawman that substitutes one argument for another. Islam is based on Allah's rejection of Jews and Christians, and the Koranic claim that Jews and Christians rejected Mohammed. The separate existence of Jews and Christians is in Muslim eyes a testament to their heresy or unbelief. For if they truly believed, they would be Muslims.  

Can devout Muslims not hate Jews or Christians? Only if we define devout differently than Mohammed, who Gerecht admits hated both.

But from a technical standpoint, devout Muslims need not hate Jews and Christians. They're just commanded not to befriend them, and to subjugate and kill them. But if they can do so with no more emotion than machines, perhaps Mohammed would still approve. This is hardly much of a defense though. It is no comfort that your murderers did not hate you personally, but were only acting on orders from their holy book. 

Reuel Gerecht is correct that Muslims are more than just physical embodiments of the Koran, but nor can you casually talk about Muslims, without acknowledging that they strive to live by the Koran as an ideal. Muslims are human beings who feel the same things we do. But so were the followers of National Socialism or the guards in the watchtowers of Soviet Gulags. There were, for example, Nazis who killed Jews, but also saved some of them. That the same man who oversaw mass murder, might save a child, tells us that people are complex. But it is no denial of what Nazism is, or what Nazis did, or even what this man in particular did. 

There js much more. Go (the toons are great too.)