Fact Checking Michael Jackson’s Christian Faith, Part 3 of 7: Refuting A Racist Rabbi!

This guy makes Rabbi Boteach look like a saint!

I know that the title is extremely eye-catching, and is borderline slanderous to some of you, because here in America the term “racist” is so emotionally loaded due to this country’s embarrassing record on civil rights. We’ve made so much progress since the end of the Civil Rights movement in terms of race relations, educational and career opportunities for African-Americans and other minorities, and the election of Barack Obama is seen as the crowning achievement, and a sign that the dream of Martin Luther King has come to fruition.

Having said that, race is still the third most controversial topic that can be discussed (behind religion and politics), and a constant epidemic of people –both minorities and whites – “playing the race card” (which means to make race an issue when it really isn’t one, such as filing frivolous racial discrimination lawsuits) has caused many to simply roll their eyes and dismiss most claims of someone being labeled a “racist”.

As an African-American, I take the word very seriously, and I don’t throw it around at people I don’t like at every chance I get. Thus, if I call someone a racist, it’s because I truly believe it is warranted! And when I call Chaim Ben Pesach a racist, you better believe its 100% justified!

So who is this Chaim Ben Pesach guy?

He is currently the head of the Jewish Task Force, an organization that whose goal is to support and advance Jewish causes around the world. He’s also an unrepentant terrorist! He served time in prison from 1978 through 1983 for bombing Egyptian targets, and in 1986 he was sentenced to 10 years after several arrests for possessing pipe bombs, tear gas grenades, and other deadly weapons.

He now hosts his own radio show, and has posted many videos on YouTube. I stumbled upon his hateful, bigoted comments against Michael Jackson by accident, and I was absolutely riveted by what I heard! The commentary that you are about to hear is by far the most hateful and most despicable and most racist that you’ll ever hear! It’s no wonder that he has been condemned as a racist by the Anti-Defamation League!

There are so many lies that he spit out of his dirty mouth that I decided to refute them all in a single post, as this loser certainly warrants his own post, so I can give him my undivided attention as I rip him to shreds!

Be prepared to pick your jaw up from off the ground when you’re finished listening to him!

I debated about discussing in the beginning of the program also the death of Michael Jackson _________ (says a Jewish phrase) which means “May his name and memory be obliterated, and may the name of the wicked rot!” which is a traditional Jewish curse for evil people. Michael Jackson started out his career as a boy singing with others in his family.  They made huge amounts of money, unbelievable amounts of money. In the early 1980s alone, Michael Jackson sold 50 million copies of one album, and 50 million of a second album.  The amount of money that he was generating from that, plus the royalties, plus everything else, plus the commercials, and all the companies that used him for their commercial benefit.  He should have been worth a billion dollars now.  He should have been worth a billion dollars now! Just to give you a comparison, Paul McCartney from the Beatles is a billionaire. He’s a billionaire, Paul McCartney from the Beatles, because he wisely invested and saved his money like a civilized person.  I don’t like a lot of the things the Beatles stood for. The Beatles defended drug use, and were anti-American, and socialism, and the song “Imagine” by John Lennon is a song about atheism, and they’re anti-religious, so I’m no fan of the Beatles.  But, they were talented musicians, but their political views and their social views were horrific.   But at least Paul McCartney put his money in a normal place, and saved his money like a normal human being!

Michael Jackson should have been a billionaire also with all of the money he made over so many decades! He should have also been a billionaire by now! Instead he died in massive debt! He was massively in debt! Where did all the money go? What did he do? Where did everything go? I mean, just disgusting. And the most disgusting thing of course is this was a child molesting rapist! The very first child that Michael Jackson raped was a 14 year old Jewish boy. I don’t know what his name is. But it was a 14 year old Jewish boy that Michael Jackson invited over to his estate.  And this was way before he got arrested. This was an earlier case, about 25 years ago, and Michael Jackson raped and attacked this Jewish boy.  And the Jewish boy threatened to file charges, and Jackson would have been arrested then, and there would have been all types of publicity then. But Jackson settled out of court with the Jewish boy, I think he bought him off, the estimate was $20 million dollars to shut up, and not to file charges, and that’s what happened.

But because of that, he expressed all types of vicious anti-Semitism, and that’s why he sang the song “Sue me, Jew me”, that he sang in Brazil because he was a vicious anti-Semite, Michael Jackson.  He also expressed anti-White views, even though he himself obviously wanted to be white. He became a Muslim of course, in the end, he and his brothers were Muslims. I mean, it’s typical of everything, the sickness, the nauseating sickness of Black America. This is Black America.  They can’t handle money! You give them wealth and they lose everything and go deep into debt.  They attack children and molest and rape little children.  They’re perverted. They engage in the most perverse sex.  When they get caught, they play the race card.  They do the most insane things!

Look at what he did to his face, and the surgeries! What a sick person this was! And with all of this, this child molesting, rapist, drug addict piece of garbage who looked like a monster after all of his surgeries, is literally being worshipped by the news media and the Hollywood people.  And it’s like some big loss to society that this animal finally died, ________ (says a Jewish phrase), Thank God.  So, it’s amazing! It’s just absolutely amazing. It’s absolutely incredible.

And make no mistake about it: Michael Jackson represents Black America! Remember, Al Sharpton’s sister had sex with Al Sharpton’s father.  Al Sharpton’s father and sister had an incestuous relationship, and Al Sharpton’s sister gave birth to Al Sharpton’s half-brother as a result of that relationship.  Al Sharpton has a half-brother that his sister gave birth to. His sister gave birth to a baby after she slept with Al Sharpton’s father. The father and daughter slept with each other in an incestuous relationship in the Sharpton family. Al Sharpton’s father and Al Sharpton’s sister had sex and slept with each other. Al Sharpton’s sister became pregnant and gave birth to Al Sharpton’s half-brother.  These are the role models in the black community! These are the role models!

Michael Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson. Look at Jesse Jackson, another role model! He was counseling Bill Clinton on adultery, and Bill Clinton said “Oh yes! He’s my minister!”  He was coming to the White House, with his secretary, a black secretary that he came to the White House with, Jesse Jackson came to the White House with his black secretary counsel Bill Clinton, and to pray with him, and to explain to him why he shouldn’t commit adultery. And while Jesse Jackson was counseling him, and ministering to him, and praying for him about the adultery, Jesse Jackson himself was committing adultery with the very black secretary that he was bringing to the White House, and made the black secretary who he was bringing to the White House pregnant, and she had a child with Jesse Jackson.  That’s the other role model for the black community.  And by the way, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are all deep in debt, and don’t pay their debt, and steal money, and are all corrupt, and their organizations are corrupt, and their organizations get away with never paying their debts, millions of dollars in debts, and white people pay for everything, white people give them everything, and they hate and resent white people.

This is Black America! This is Michael Jackson! This is Jesse Jackson! This is Al Sharpton! This is Louis Farrakahn! This is the black rap pieces of garbage in Hollywood! And this is Barack Hussein Obama! This is the future of America if we don’t wake up!    

Ok, once you pick your jaw up from off the ground, get ready for it to drop again! Here are his thoughts on Martin Luther King, taken from a 2000 interview.  Pay attention to how he refers to Civil Rights laws as “horrible”!

It’s Black History Month. You’ve been running two series on your site: one disputing Henry Louis Gates’ Wonders of the African World TV show and another linking “black morality” with AIDS. Any thoughts for February?

This is just another example of the new religion in America, which is worshipping blacks. This is the new religion in this country. January is dedicated to Martin Luther King’s birthday. February is Black History Month. April we spend the whole month mourning his assassination. August we spend the whole month reflecting on his “I have a dream” speech in 1963. This is unbelievable. What in the world is so great about Martin Luther King? It’s just a question that I have. Did he really accomplish anything so spectacular? I mean, look at the results of what he accomplished; look at what’s happened to this country. Wasn’t this a better country before we had all these horrible laws that turned our cities into urban jungles, before we had the skyrocketing crime, the decline in morality, the massive drug use? All these things happened after these terrible laws were passed as a result of what he did. I think he had a terrible influence on this country. I believe he was a racist; I believe he was an anti-semite. And the fact that he gets a holiday to himself, while all the presidents of the United States put together get one day called Presidents’ Day, is so obscene there are no words for it.

Not only that: Presidents’ Day is only a day for sales. That’s the purpose of Presidents’ Day. They’d never dare have sales on Martin Luther King Day; it’s so holy, so sacred, we could never have sales. We have to remember the words of Dr. King. It is absolutely obscene. I do not understand why white America feels the need to stick their noses up black behind all the time. I don’t understand this. What are they so intimidated by? What are blacks going to do if whites finally stand up and have some backbone and say, “We’ve had enough of this.”? What are they going to do? Are they going to defeat the whites in a war? That certainly didn’t happen in colonial times. It certainly didn’t happen in South Africa, where 4 million whites held out against hundreds of millions of blacks on the black continent. I mean, this is ridiculous: What are white people so afraid of? Whites have convinced themselves that there’s something to be intimidated about. This is what we desperately want to put an end to. Enough is enough. This is a great country. White people have a lot to be proud of. There is nothing for white people to be ashamed of. We have to stop these guilt trips and stop this apologizing that has been put upon us. Because white people have done nothing wrong and, in fact, have bent over backwards to be nice to people who are destroying the whole country. It’s about time that this ended, and that’s what we would like to do here.

Well, that pretty much sums up the type of person that we’re dealing with here: an unapologetic racist and bigot. If he feels that strongly against Martin Luther King, the most revered and honored civil rights icon who ever lived, then why would he have positive thoughts on Michael Jackson?

Let the fact checking begin!

1. “The very first child that Michael Jackson raped was a 14 year old Jewish boy. I don’t know what his name is.” The fact that Pesach cannot identify Jordan Chandler, and that he thinks his allegation was made 25 years ago, is totally indicative of his lack of knowledge of the facts. The less you know about the allegations, the more likely you are to believe them!

As we’ve learned from my series on how to recognize and refute the fallacies used to smear Michael Jackson, haters love to use ad hominem attacks to get people to make  rash, uninformed judgments about MJ, and conclude that he’s guilty based on emotions instead of evidence.  Notice how he uses the term “rapist” instead of “molester” in order to appeal to emotions! That word has a more violent connotation, and it evokes an image of a physical overpowering of the victim against his or her will.  So let me squash this tactic right here and right now: Michael Jackson was NOT accused of raping Jordan Chandler, or any other child! MJ was accused of kissing Jordan (first on the lips, before gradually leading to tongue kissing), bathing with him, masturbating him, having Jordan suck his nipple as Jordan masturbated him, and performing oral sex on Jordan. That’s it! No penetration whatsoever!

And that’s not an accident either! Anyone can accuse anyone of merely “touching them”, which is essentially what Evan Chandler (Jordan’s father) did. If Jordan had accused MJ of sodomy, then he would have been subjected to a medical exam to determine if he had any internal injuries that corroborated his claims, and Evan’s plan would have been thwarted right then and there.

For those of you who are completely unfamiliar with the 1993 case, here is a quick rundown of the chain of events that occurred before, during, and in the years after the allegations were made public:

1. Michael Jackson met the Chandler family (12 year old Jordan, his divorced parents Evan and June, and his little sister Natalie) in May 1992 when his car broke down in front of a rental car store owned by June’s husband Dave Scwartz. Evan was a dentist and aspiring screenwriter, and he and Jordan wrote the scriptof “Robin Hood: Men in Tights”, a spoof of “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”.

2. Michael formed a friendship with Jordan, June, and Lily, and during May and June 1993 they travelled around the world with him, and spent a lot of time at Neverland.  As Jordan began to spend less and less time with Evan, Evan’s became extremely jealous, and thought that MJ was “breaking up” his family. On top of that, MJ rejected Evan’s desire to allow him to become a 50/50 partner in MJ’s new film company “Lost Boys Productions”.

3. Dave Schwartz and Evan Chandler had a very shaky history, and Schwartz secretly recorded a telephone conversation between himself and Evan because Evan had previously made threats to kill Schwartz and his entire family. During this conversation, Evan discusses his disdain for MJ, and how he will win “big time” if he doesn’t get “what he wants” from MJ. Scwartz is concerned, and gives the tape to Anthony Pellicano, MJ’s private investigator. (MJJ Justice Project did an EXCELLENT analysis of it in their two-part series! Here’s part 1, and part 2.)

4. During July 1993, Evan obtained temporary custody of Jordan that was only supposed to last one week, but he never returned Jordan to June’s custody. Jordan stayed with Evan throughout the month of July, and during this time, he extracted one of Jordan’s teeth, and as soon as the procedure was done (and while Jordan was still under the influence of anesthesia and other drugs), he coerced Jordan to admit to being abused by Michael. Instead of going straight to the police with this bombshell information, Evan instead goes straight to his civil attorney!

5. Evan, his attorney Barry Rothman, and Jordan met with MJ and his private investigator Anthony Pellicano on August 4^th, 1993, in order to discuss Evan’s demand for a $20 million dollar for a film deal in lieu of pressing charges against MJ.  MJ utterly refuses to pay up, but under the advice of his legal counsel, Pellicano engages in negotiations for a cheaper film deal, which Evan rejects. MJ’s legal counsel felt that it would be best to simply appease Evan and offer him a $350k film deal (which was pocket change to MJ), rather than risk the negative publicity that would come by getting the police involved, especially right before MJ was scheduled to continue his “Dangerous” world tour.

6. On August 16^th, 1993 June Chandler filed an Ex Parte motion in order to regain custody of Jordan, who should have been returned to her on July 18^th. On August 17^th, an Ex Parte Motion hearing was scheduled by the court that day in order to force Evan to return Jordan to June’s custody. Rather than tell the court that he refused to return Jordan due to a suspicion that he would be placed in the vicinity of MJ via June, he instead brings Jordan to see Dr. Mathis Abrams, a psychiatrist. Evan did this so that the psychiatrist could report the alleged abuse, and Evan couldn’t be charged with filing a false claim. This was all a part of his plan!

7. Evan Chandler initially hired Gloria Allred to represent him, but he fired her because of her refusal to sue MJ before criminally prosecuting him, and he replaced her with Larry Feldman, who filed a frivolous civil lawsuit in September 1993. MJ countersued for extortion.

8. Feldman filed a Motion for Trial Preference in order to have the civil trail precede the criminal trial. This is a special request to have the civil trial heard within 120 days after the motion is granted, and is generally given to children under the age of 14 years old, and is designed to allow young victims to have a speedy trial and move on with their lives, as opposed to waiting months or years for their case to get to trial. MJ’s attorneys Bert Fields and Howard Weitzman filed a counter-motion called a Motion for Stay of Discovery and Trial in order to have the civil trial delayed until after the criminal trial. They’re motion was subsequently denied, probably due to the fact that MJ had not been arrested and criminally charged at that point, and there was no guarantee that a criminal prosecution would occur, and Feldman was able to effectively argue that Jordan’s rights as a minor should be honored in order for him to have a chance at winning in court.

9. On December 20^th, 1993 MJ was served with a search warrant to identify his penis to see if it corroborated Jordan Chandler’s description, which he had given months earlier. MJ willingly submitted to it, and was not arrested immediately upon the completion of his strip search because the description was a total and absolute mismatch! As a result, Larry Feldman requested to have MJ strip searched again or bar the original photos from court, which only confirms that it wasn’t an accurate match. (For more information on this issue, please read this post.)

10. On January 25^th, 1994, the Chandler’s civil lawsuit was settled out of court. The settlement money was not offered or paid by MJ, nor did it prevent the Chandlers from testifying in any subsequent criminal case. After the settlement was announced, the Chandlers refused to cooperate with authorities, and LA District Attorney Gil Garcetti was so desperate to get them to cooperate that he urged state legislators to amend a law that prohibited him from forcing victims to testify. (Read the “Officials Desperate to Nail Jackson” article in that link.)

11. Two different grand juries in two counties (Los Angeles and Santa Barbara) refused to indict MJ on criminal charges, and the investigation concluded on September 22^nd, 1994. Also, during this time investigative journalist Mary Fischer published an award winning article for GQ Magazine titled “Was Michael Jackson Framed?” Here is an interview she did with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News in November 2003, shortly after MJ’s arrest in the Arvizo case.

12. In 1993, a former Neverland maid named Blanca Francia was paid $20k by the now defunct tabloid celebrity gossip show “Hard Copy” for an interview, and in it she claimed to have seen MJ showering with young boys. She had been fired from Neverland in 1991, but said she had “quit in disgust” at the inappropriate behavior that she had witnessed between MJ and young boys.  Her then 13 year old son Jason was interviewed without her knowledge by police, who were desperately looking for any additional “victims” of MJ to bolster their case, and although Jason initially denied by molested by MJ, the interrogators were able to make him succumb to their demands and claim that MJ touched him inappropriately during several tickling games. Criminal charges were never sought, and in 1995 Blanca’s lawyers threatened a civil lawsuit against MJ over Jason’s claims of abuse, and MJ settled with them out of court in order to avoid the negative publicity and irreparable damage to his career that a civil trial would have brought. The settlement agreement contained a clear and conspicuous statement that it was not to be construed as an admission of guilt on MJ’s part. Jason was subpoenaed to testify against MJ in 2005, and was so thoroughly obliterated under cross-examination that some jurors laughed at his testimony while on a break! (I will thoroughly analyze his testimony in part 4.)

12. In May 1996, Evan filed a $60 million lawsuit against MJ, Lisa Marie Presley, ABC News, and Sony, and he wanted to record and publish a rebuttal album called “EVANstory”. Evan felt that many of the songs on MJ’s 1995 album “HIStory” were aimed directly at him (and they were!), and wanted to seek revenge. The lawsuit was thrown out in 2000, and Evan’s finances were depleted by the legal fees.

13. In September 2004, Ray Chandler successfully quashed Mesereau’s subpoena for him to testify in court about the validity of his book “All That Glitters” (read this series for more info), which was ghostwritten by Evan Chandler, and was originally intended to be released in Spring 1994. Book publisher Judith Regan confirmed this in July 2009. Here is her interview:

14. In August 2005, two months after the trial, Evan tried to murder Jordan by hitting him from behind with a 12.5 pound weight, spraying mace in his face, and choking him. Jordan obtained a permanent restraining order as a result of Evan’s assault.

15. In November 2009, Evan committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Nobody attended his wake, and he was subsequently cremated. Hopefully they flushed his ashes down the toilet, but unfortunately this information has yet to be confirmed!

16. In December 2009, the FBI released their files on MJ, as a result of requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and they confirm a meeting in September 2004 with Ron Zonen and Jordan Chandler, who threatened legal action if he was subpoenaed to testify because he “had done his part”. What kind of “victim” would threaten legal action to AVOID testifying against his abuser? What kind of “victim” does “his part”? The answer to those two questions is this: a FALSE victim!

 2. “But because of that, he expressed all types of vicious anti-Semitism, and that’s why he sang the song “Sue me, Jew me”, that he sang in Brazil because he was a vicious anti-Semite, Michael Jackson.”  The lyric that he is referencing is from the song “They Don’t Really Care About Us”, and it is a direct reference not to ALL Jews, but to one particular Jew: Evan Chandler!  In response to the anti-Semitism accusations that were thrown at him, MJ issued the following statement:

The idea that these lyrics could be deemed objectionable is extremely hurtful to me, and misleading. The song in fact is about the pain of prejudice and hate and is a way to draw attention to social and political problems. I am the voice of the accused and the attacked. I am the voice of everyone. I am the skinhead, I am the Jew, I am the black man, I am the white man. I am not the one who was attacking. It is about the injustices to young people and how the system can wrongfully accuse them. I am angry and outraged that I could be so misinterpreted.

The offensive lyrics were censored in subsequent pressings of the “HIStory” CD.

3. “He also expressed anti-White views, even though he himself obviously wanted to be white.” Personally, I am so sick and tired of people claiming that MJ “wanted to be white”, as this is THE most ignorant and ludicrous claim that anyone can possibly make about him!  We have talked about this subject on this blog so many times already that is has really become redundant to have to constantly repeat ourselves, so I’ll refer you this post on the effects that Vitiligo and Lupus had on MJ, as well as this post that shows the parallels between MJ and another African-American performer who lost all of his pigment due to vitiligo.

One thing I’d like to say is this: for the sake of discussion, let’s say that MJ really did bleach his skin in order to be white.  How would that be any different than whites who spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on spray tans, tanning salons, skin darkening creams, travelling to the beach to sit in the sun, etc., in order to darken their skin? Tanning is so glorified in our culture that not only is it acceptable to be tanned, it is EXPECTED that you are tanned at all times to achieve an optimum appearance!

Let’s take a look at some very famous people who are well known for constantly being tanned!

Let’s start with “The Donald”, Donald Trump, who is arguably the most famous entrepreneur in the history of the United States!

This is Speaker of the House John Boehner, one of the most powerful politicians in the country! In fact, he’s the second in the USA presidential line of succession, right after the Vice President (of course!).  He is constantly ridiculed by “too much” of a tan, and even President Obama couldn’t resist cracking a joke about it at the 1:16 mark:

In response to this joke, Boehner said the following in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:

Addressing a perennial source of jokes, Mr. Boehner says his dark complexion is natural, similar to that of his mother and four (of 12) siblings. “I have never been in a tanning bed or used a tanning product,” Mr. Boehner said. His staff showed a high school group photo where he has the darkest face in Moeller High’s all-male class.

Whether or not he has used any tanning products isn’t the issue; the issue is the fact that he has never accused of “trying to be black” or “selling out” because of his darker complexion!

Of course, Hollywood and the modeling industry are the top promoters of the benefits of tanning! For example, the cast of the Jersey Shore have actually trademarked the term “GTL”, which stands for “Gym, Tan, Laundry”! (Those are the 3 attributes that they live by.) Many stars are required to have tans before being photographed for the cover of a magazine, or landing a leading role in a movie!

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino working on his spray tan!

Let’s look at a few comparisons of stars with and without tans (you can see the entire gallery here):

Mary-Kate Olsen

Claire Danes

Molly Sims

Kate Winslet

In each of their situations, it was to their benefit – and not their detriment – to have a tan! Nobody EVER accused them of being “self-hating” white people or wanting to “be black”! Look at this excerpt from a despicable blog post that was written the day after MJ died!

It might be sad to say but I really could not care any less. Michael Jackson was the very worst example of a black person who really hated being black. While most self-hating black people would be content to simply say that they have transcended race, Michael Jackson was the one black person that actually decided to do something about it. Michael Jackson stared at the man in the mirror and decided he didn’t like what he saw enough to buy a new white skin tone, a keen nose that stayed on his face most of the time, thin lips, and a drippy jerry curl to exorcise the kinkiness of his natural hair and eventually just had it permed straight and long. This was not a person happy about being black or who wanted to embrace his blackness. Mr. Jackson ran from being black in front of the entire world to see. Being black was much too painful for him to live with.

The music that made Michael Jackson famous evaporated along with his blackness. The new hybrid Michael Jackson that looked more like a scarecrow from a Japanese anime and his accompanying music could never compete with the older version. And instead of being content to let his greatness lie in the past the King of Pop kept trying to recreate a new phenomenon based on superficial glitz and glamour instead of what really drove his initial success, the raw talent and the music.

And here’s another posted titled “Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson Died of Self-Hatred”.

He was a joke, an embarrassment, until I saw the 1999 satirical war drama Three Kings. The film, which is set during the 1991 Iraqi uprising against Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, features a trio of greedy U.S. soldiers who steal Kuwaiti gold. One soldier, Troy Barlow, played by Mark Wahlberg, is caught by Iraqi soldiers and taken into a basement to be tortured. The Iraqi officer asks him coolly, “What is the problem with Michael Jackson?”

The Iraqi holds up his hand as if it’s the glittering glove. “He come to Egypt. Hello I’m Michael Jackson with my chop-up face. Your country make him chop up his face,” he says.

That’s bullshit; he did it to himself,” Wahlberg says. The Iraqi officer slams him. “It is obvious! A black man make the skin white and the hair straight and you know why? Your sick fuckin’ country make the black man hate himself just like you hate the Arab and the children you bomb over here.”

I paused the scene and thought, “Yeah, Michael is a symptom of America. He’s not a joke, but a warning.”

Here is the clip from the movie “Three Kings” that he is referring to. The movie, which was released in 1999, is about a group of soldiers who are stationed in Iraq in 1991 after the end of the first Persian Gulf War. The Iraqi interrogator in this scene is using MJ as a symptom of how America makes people hate themselves, and it’s obvious that the interrogator has been reading too many tabloids!

I also believe that there is a historical inaccuracy regarding the timing of the events in the movie. The Gulf War ended on February 28^th, 1991, the Dangerous World Tour started on June 27^th, 1992, and the Chandler extortion case didn’t go public until August 17^th, 1993! So if this movie takes place following the end of the Gulf War (which would, theoretically, be Spring  1991), and before both the start of the Dangerous World tour, and (more importantly) before the allegations, then how and why would that interpreter become so suspicious of MJ travelling with young boys? Prior to the allegations, nobody was even remotely suspicious of MJ being around children! It seems that the producers and scriptwriters were just trying to take pot shots at MJ for the sake of humor!

4. “He became a Muslim of course, in the end, he and his brothers were Muslims.”  This is arguably the most controversial aspect of MJ in his final years, after the trial.

MJ moved to the Arabic nation of Bahrain in 2005 at the request of his brother Jermaine in order to lay low and stay out of the media spotlight, there has been speculation that he converted to Islam.  However, this move was met with tremendous skepticism by the media!  Many MJ haters in the media, who had already been humiliated months before when he was rightfully acquitted in his criminal trial, insinuated that MJ’s desire to move to Bahrain was motivated by the lack of an extradition treaty with the United States!

Here is a November 2005 interview between two notorious MJ haters, Tucker Carlson and Diane Dimond, where this issue was raised by them (my commentary is in red):

CARLSON:  Welcome back.

If pop star Michael Jackson wants to make his new home in Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, he better tell the men‘s and women‘s rooms apart.

The self-proclaimed King of Pop (Michael did NOT “self-proclaim” anything! This will be refuted in Part 5!) says he didn‘t understand the Arabic sign on the door and walked right into the ladies room at a shopping mall.  His girlish looks apparently didn‘t give him any cover.  He left the bathroom as soon as he realized his mistake, but according to one witness, not without applying some make-up first.

Diane Diamond is a reporter who‘s followed Michael Jackson‘s legal troubles for more than a decade.  She‘s written a new book about the child molestation charges against him, the book released yesterday on her birthday, called, “Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case.”

She joins us now, live from New York.

Diane Diamond, thanks a lot for coming on.

DIANE DIAMOND, AUTHOR, “BE CAREFUL WHO YOU LOVE”:  Oh, Tucker, my pleasure.  How are you doing?

Carlson:  Great.  The obvious question first, what did you—I mean, were you shocked by the verdict?  Did you expect it?

DIAMOND:  No, I wasn‘t shocked.  You know, I‘ve been covering Michael Jackson since, what, 1993.  I learned to never be shocked about anything that happens with him.

CARLSON:  You became part of the story in a way.  You were the target of a lot of hostility, break-ins to your house.  I think your car was messed up.  You had to take out a restraining order.  Where did that come from?  Who are these people who were targeting you?

DIAMOND:  Well, my phones were tapped back in 1993 by Michael Jackson‘s private detective at the time, a man named Anthony Pelacono, who I‘m just sort of glad to say is in jail now.

Anyway, yes, it‘s been a long road since I started to cover the story in 1993 until now, and I thought maybe it would die down when I took the story back up in 2003.  But it didn‘t, really.

And there‘s—now we have a thing called the Internet, and the threats and the intimidation and the intrigue.  I mean, Tucker, I was covering this trial in little Santa Maria, California, and I had a local law enforcement guy call me over and say, “You know, we know where you go to dinner.”

I said, “How do you know where you go to dinner?”

He said, “It‘s on the Internet.”

I said, “What?”

CARLSON:  That‘s creepy.

DIAMOND:  Yes, the fans were taking pictures of me and other reporters going to dinner and then suggesting to other fans that maybe they would like to go there and intimidate us.

CARLSON:  I know…

DIAMOND:  Kind of creepy.

CARLSON:  … you‘re a reporter and not a shrink.  But maybe you have some insight into the psychology of Michael Jackson fans. (He’s trying to say that anyone who supports him is a “crazy, rabid” fan!) The lady was releasing the doves the night of his acquittal.  What is the appeal of Michael Jackson after all we know about him, that‘s not appealing?

DIAMOND:  You know, she was so angry at me because I started to tell her a story, and she heard that I was making fun of her.  Well, I didn‘t make fun of her.  I was simply reporting that she was going to release doves.

You know, I don‘t know.  I think they‘re so blinded by their adoration of this man, and it‘s one thing that I learned in writing this book, “Be Careful Who You Love.”  And I took the title from the “Billy Jean” lyric, “Be—my mama always told me, be careful who you love,” because I think we‘re kind of blinded by the celebrity that we have now.

CARLSON:  Yes.

DIAMOND:  They‘re blinded by it.  They don‘t know the rules of behavior, and so they behave any way they want.  And we‘re blinded by their celebrity, as well, and I think we need to be careful who we love when we love a celebrity like Michael Jackson.

CARLSON:  If it‘s Michael Jackson, that‘s for sure.  What‘s going to happen to this guy?

DIAMOND:  I think he‘ll probably remain overseas, Tucker.  Look, he‘s got millions of dollars of lawsuits pending against him here, civil lawsuits.

The Child Protective Services would like to come and see what his children are up to, and if they‘re safe.  Debbie Rowe might like to renew the custody battle.

And you know, where the heck does he live that law enforcement is not going to…

CARLSON:  That‘s a good point.

DIAMOND:  … put him in the crosshairs.  They‘re going to be watching him like a hawk.

CARLSON:  And he‘s moved to a part of the world that has far, far more lenient attitudes about sexual contact between men and boys.  Do you think that is one of the reasons he‘s relocated or seems to have relocated there?

DIAMOND:  Maybe you‘re more cynical than I.  I just thought maybe he moved there because they don‘t have an extradition treaty with America, and maybe some other victims might come up.

But you‘re right, they do have a much different viewpoint of men with boys and the sheikhs over there have little boy valets with them all the time.  Maybe it was a sort of double-edged reason why he moved there.

CARLSON:  Oh, yuck.  The book, “Be Careful Who You Love,” the reporter Diane Diamond, climbing up the best seller list even as we speak.

DIAMOND:  I hope so.

CARLSON:  Happy birthday.

DIAMOND:  Thank you.

CARLSON:  And thanks a lot for coming on.

DIAMOND:  My pleasure.

Here’s Nancy Grace raising the issue on her show as well!

Michael’s brother Jermaine (and ONLY Jermaine!) converted to Islam in 1989 after a trip to Bahrain. He explains his conversion process in this interview, beginning at 2:25:

Shortly after his arrest in 2003, Michael hired the Fruit of Islam as bodyguards, following Jermaine’s request. However, they were fired upon Mesereau’s hiring as Michael’s attorney, because he felt that they created a barrier between Michael and his community, and Mesereau felt that Michael needed to be seen as a part of the community in order to “normalize” him and rebut the media’s caricature of him. Here are his comments on this issue from the 2005 Harvard Law seminar:

You may recall that first arraignment.  I was not his lawyer then.  First of all, Nation of Islam were providing security for Michael.  And they were very prominent in Santa Maria at that first arraignment.  Now I’ve worked with the Nation of Islam for many years, and I still do.  And I’ve agreed to defend their western regional leader if he is charged with assaulting a police officer, which they are threatening to do, but haven’t done yet.  And I am well aware of what Nation of Islam does in the inner city, in Los Angeles.  The way they fight gang violence.  The way they fight drugs.  The way they try and teach people responsibility and spirituality, and they do so much in the city that is the gang capitol of America to try to stop this violence.  And I had worked with the Nation of Islam on the Patricia Moore case.  They had been great supporters of her.  But nevertheless, I did not think that having the Nation of Islam in that prominent position as Michael’s security people in Santa Maria was helping him defend.  I felt it was separating him more from the community that was going to judge him, rather than making him a part of the community, that he had chosen to live in, that will judge him. And I made that very clear.  This is not a good way to start.

Jermaine’s interviews throughout the years of his hope that MJ would convert to Islam, such as this interview with Reuters:

Brother wants Michael Jackson to be a Muslim

LONDON — Jermaine Jackson said on Monday he wants his brother Michael to convert to Islam; and he believes the reclusive superstar has given it serious thought.

“Michael, I feel, needs to become a Muslim because I think it’s a great protection for him from all the things that he’s been attacked with, which are false,” said the former Jackson Five singer who now lives in Bahrain.

“There’s a strength and protection there,” Jackson told BBC Asian Network after finishing runner-up to Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in the “Celebrity Big Brother” TV reality show that was marred by accusations of racist bullying.

Jackson said he believed his brother had given conversion “serious thought” during long spells in Bahrain.

“I was the reason why he had gone there because I wanted him to get out of America and just go somewhere it’s peaceful and quiet and people pray five times a day which is beautiful.”

Michael Jackson was acquitted of child molestation charges in June 2005.

He has said he plans to move to Europe in a bid to resurrect his musical career as the “King of Pop” and has indicated he will release a new album in 2007.

Jermaine Jackson said his faith helped keep him sane in the enclosed confines of the British reality TV programme where the contestants are kept cooped up under 24-hour surveillance.

“If I didn’t have Allah and my prayer rug, I would not have survived and the reason why is because it kept me focused, it kept me calm,” he said.

As a result of Jermaine’s incessant public statements about his hope that MJ would convert to Islam, it gave the story legs, and, as expected, the tabloid media had a field day!  For example, here is a story from The Telegraph tabloid that is definitively titled “Michael Jackson converts to Islam and changes name to Mikaeel”; notice who their “source” is for this story? The Sun, another tabloid newspaper!

Michael Jackson has reportedly become a Muslim and changed his name to Mikaeel.

The singer, who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, converted to Islam in a ceremony at a friend’s house in Los Angeles.

He is said to have sat on the floor and worn a small hat while an imam officiated.

According to The Sun, the ceremony took place while Jackson, 50, was recording an album at the home of Steve Porcaro, a keyboard player who composed music on his Thriller album.

The former Jackson 5 star was counselled by David Wharnsby, a Canadian songwriter, and Phillip Bubal, a producer, who have both converted.

A source said Jackson had appeared a “bit down” and added: “They began talking to him about their beliefs, and how they thought they had become better people after they converted. Michael soon began warming to the idea.

“An imam was summoned from the mosque and Michael went through the shahada, which is the Muslim declaration of belief.”

Last year his brother, Jermaine Friday, suggested Jackson would convert having taken an interest in Islam since Friday’s conversion in 1989.

“When I came back from Mecca I got him a lot of books and he asked me lots of things about my religion and I told him that it’s peaceful and beautiful,” said Friday.

“He read everything and he was proud of me that I found something that would give me inner strength and peace.

“I think it is most probable that Michael will convert to Islam.

“He could do so much, just like I am trying to do. Michael and I and the word of God, we could do so much.”

This report was published on November 21^st, 2008, and was immediately refuted by Londell McMillan, MJ’s lawyer at that time, in this report about the settlement  of a lawsuit between MJ and the Prince of Bahrain about MJ’s refusal to record an album for him. (When it was announced in the press in 2005 that MJ would record an album for him, this also fueled rumors that he had converted to Islam. Some felt that it may be an Islamic album.)

Jackson’s New York lawyer, Londell McMillan, took the opportunity to trash a British press report that Jackson has become a Muslim. “That’s rubbish. It’s completely untrue,” McMillan told reporters.

After Michael’s death was confirmed, Jermaine held a short press conference at the UCLA Medical Center, and at the end he says “May Allah be with you Michael, always”.

Some people took that as a sign that Michael had indeed converted to Islam, but the reality is that Jermaine’s statement was a reflection of his own spirituality, and not Michael’s!  It’s analogous to a Christian who is around a Buddhist who sneezes and tells the Buddhist “God bless you” instead of “Buddha bless you”.

In the aftermath of MJ’s death, many religious blogs and websites speculated about MJ’s faith (such as this article titled “Religion Thriller”), while others erroneously reported that MJ had absolutely converted to Islam (such as this one), and their “proof” were some of the same tabloid stories that I just referenced! Additionally, the following Islamic songs titled “Give Thanks To Allah” and “Islam In My Veins” have been falsely credited as Michael Jackson songs on Youtube due to their striking resemblance to MJ’s vocals:

 

With all of the rumors flying back and forth about whether MJ converted to Islam, even his own father wasn’t spared being asked about it! On the Larry King show in July 2009, he was asked to confirm or deny the rumor, and he seemed very annoyed by the question! He answered “I don’t know that!”, and that is surely an example of how detached he was from MJ in his final years. Good grief! How could a parent NOT know what religion their children practice? And what’s more telling is the fact that Leonard Rowe was the first to answer the question by stating that Joe “doesn’t know that”, which shows that he had a firsthand knowledge of how unaware Joe was about the personal aspects of Michael’s life!  He says this beginning at  the 3:13 mark:

If Joe had answered “Yes, Michael converted to Islam”, then MJ haters within the Christian community would use it as absolute proof that MJ was a Muslim, and they’d use this information to further discredit, malign, and judge him, and to make Christians feel guilty for mourning him. If Joe had answered “No, Michael was a Christian”, then those same MJ haters within the Christian community would say that they don’t believe it because MJ was so “weird and bizarre”, and God would have made him “normal”, and he wouldn’t have “bleached his skin” or “mutilated his face”. 

Now, getting back to those Islamic songs, there are too many people who have been duped into thinking that MJ officially converted to Islam BECAUSE of those two songs, but that couldn’t be further from the truth! He did NOT sing those songs! Here is the proof! The song “Give Thanks To Allah” was recorded by an Islamic artist named Zain Bhikha! He wrote a blog post on his Myspace page in July 2009 to confirm that MJ didn’t sing his song! (It’s too bad he waited until after MJ died to do this!) Here is his statement:

Micheal Jackson & “Give Thanks to Allah”

July 2009

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Local time: 13:19pm

Peace be with you dear friends,

I too, like the rest of the world, was quite shocked to hear of the death of singer and songwriter, Micheal Jackson. During the 80’s and 90’s, my young days are filled with memories of his songs and performances and no doubt, he has influenced me in various ways, especially with the intensity of his tremendous talent. I think what strikes me most was his vocal ability in terms of range, expression, emotion and unique tone.

“To our Lord do we belong and to Him is our return”.

The reason I bring all this up is merely because since before his death and quite amplified now after, I have been inundated with e-mails and calls from people, organisations and the media asking me to clarify whether a song called “Give Thanks to Allah” was sung by Micheal Jackson or myself. This rumour started a while ago and has been circulating on the internet ever since.

So, to clarify, Micheal Jackson never sang this song. I wrote and recorded “Give Thanks to Allah” as a simple childrens song many years ago and it has been released on various independant albums since.

Sincerely,

Zain Bhikha

Here he is singing the song live!

The song “Islam In My Veins” is actually titled “Waiting For The Call”, and it is sung by an Islamic recording artist named Irfan Makki!

It’s amazing the lengths that MJ haters will go to in order to slander him! The fact that so many people clung to those two songs as “proof” of MJ’s conversion, when a simple Google search would have confirmed that he didn’t sing those songs, just shows how desperate some people are to sully his reputation.

And let me be clear about something: personally, I don’t care what religion MJ practiced, or his sexual orientation, or if his kids are biologically his, or whether he and Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe had sexual intercourse, or how much plastic surgery he had, or how much debt he was in, or any other personal detail of his life! Those details are none of my business!

But I’m not naïve or delusional enough to think that everyone else will feel this way! There are people who would burn all of their MJ CDs and memorabilia in a bonfire if he really was gay, or if he really did convert to Islam! I’m not prejudiced against anyone who is gay or practices Islam, but there are many people who ARE prejudiced, especially here in America!

The reason I say this is because I don’t want anyone to misconstrue this post as being anti-Islamic. I’ve been accused of being homophobic because I have staunchly defended MJ against rumors of homosexuality, which have dogged him throughout his career, and they didn’t start with in the “Thriller” era! They started in the 1970’s when he was still a teenager! (Read this post for more info on how the prosecution and the media use the gay rumors to make MJ look guilty of abusing young boys in the court of public opinion!) So to be clear, this post is strictly to debunk the Islam conversion rumors.

I’ll finish this off with a quote from Jermaine in an interview he conducted in January 2010:

“I believe that Islam would have helped him a lot. Had he converted, he would have been spared all the problems he had been subjected to throughout his life,” he said.

And here is an interview that Jermaine did with the MJJC fan club on February 29th, 2012 where he also debunked the Islam conversion rumor:

MJJC: This is kind of random, but did Michael ever express any interest in Islam or becoming a Muslim? There were many rumors swirling around in the months after his death that said he was a Muslim

Jermaine Jackson: Michael did not convert to Islam. He was curious about it and I gave him many books to read about Islam. I write in the book how, during his 2005 trial, he returned to the Kingdom Hall to pray. It’s fair to say that he died a Jehovah Witness.

Although Michael returned to the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall (their House of Worship) to pray, he did not return to that denomination. I will address this issue in Part 6 of this series. Also, keep in mind that Michael also went to other types of churches to pray, and this will be mentioned in Part 6 as well.

There, that settles it! Hopefully we can bury this rumor once and for all! For more information that debunks this rumor, read this post from WikiIslam.

To be continued………..