To Charles Jacobs pointed questions it seems we lack the courage of our convictions.

BETRAYING MODERATE MUSLIMS Charles Jacobs

There is a lot of talk in Boston, as elsewhere, about how to help moderate Muslims defeat the extremists in their communities. The Muslims I know who fight against Islamist Fascism are among the bravest people on the planet. Ahmed Mansour, Irshad Manji, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mohammed Yayha to name a few, fight for air time and platforms to press their case.

And so it was with great hope when in February 2004 the U.S. government launched the Al Hurra satellite TV channel.

Al-Hurra was designed to be an alternative voice in the Middle East broadcast landscape dominated by Arab nationalist heavyweights like al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya and state-run propaganda outfits. And for a while it was.

In its first few years, al-Hurra succeeded in carrying real information about human rights and corruption in the Middle East, raising the ire of Arab regimes and bringing praise from liberals.

But as journalist Joel Mowbray has shown since late last year, under the leadership of former CNN producer Larry Register, the network has joined the ratings game and now features traditional Middle Eastern crowd pleasers like interviews with al-Qaeda operatives praising bin Laden, live coverage of Hamas’ anniversary celebrations, and live broadcasts of Hassan Nasrallah’s call to kill Israelis and humiliate America.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent Federal agency responsible for international broadcasting is unhappy with the network’s direction, as are members of Congress. Remedies include greater oversight and putting al-Hurra online and archiving all its broadcasts. The head of the Broadcasting Board is already in a battle over NPR’s cancellation of the documentary “Islam vs. Islamist: Voices from the Muslim Center” for actually showing moderate – and radical – Muslims. The rest of the board appears to hear no evil and see no evil. To sort it all out Congress should be asking overdue questions about the management of public broadcasting and its supervision.

The deeper question: If the West is truly interested in engaging moderate Muslims and political liberals in the Arab world, why are we continually pandering to their enemies? Why do some members of Congress have meetings with sworn enemies of moderates and liberals like the Muslim Brotherhood and the thug-in chief-of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, instead of meeting with the embattled reformers? Why do otherwise intelligent people engage groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations when their words and deeds show them to be opposed to American values and goals? There are Arab/Islamic groups opposed to CAIR.

What is it about the Middle East that pushes Americans to abandon their best traditions in the name of “realism” or a cultural relativism that proclaims that our political belief in “liberty and justice for all” doesn’t apply Middle Easterners?

These are some questions to ponder as we recover from April’s sting of paying income tax, part of which Joel Mowbray has said now goes to fund a mouthpiece for our enemies and the enemies of the good, brave Muslims we so need to assist. Clip this and send it to your Rep.