Klein Cultivated Ties With Copts to Advance Anti-Muslim Crusade

Steve Klein, the California ex-marine identified as a consultant for the anti-Islam film that apparently triggered violent protests in northern Africa and the Middle East, is finally seeing the fruits of his labor.

For years, Klein has been cultivating relationships with Middle Eastern Christians in California – in particular, Joseph Nasralla, a California Coptic Christian who spoke at an anti-Muslim rally hosted by hate group leaders Pam Geller and Robert Spencer on Sept. 11, 2010.

Now, Nasralla has been identified as president and CEO of Media for Christ, a California nonprofit that allegedly produced “The Innocence of Muslims.” An unnamed spokesman for Media for Christ told the Long Beach Press Telegram that his organization was not involved with the film, but area officials confirmed to the paper that the company did take out a permit to produce it.

Meanwhile, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, another Copt from California, acknowledged that he has connections to the film as well.

This is exactly what Klein has been hoping for. The Vietnam veteran, who says Muslims have “no choice but to hunt Jews and Christians down, torture us and murder us,” has been pushing Coptic Christians to join his anti-Muslim crusade for years. A hard-line Christian nationalist who conducts paramilitary trainings with Christian groups across the country, he believes that Copts have a divine destiny to “save” America from the twin evils of secularism and Islam.

In an undated essay titled “Why are you here in America” Klein compared secularism to an oppressive Islamist regime and said God guided Copts to America to help the country reclaim its supposed Christian roots.

“The Revolution was fought for YOU. So you could flee oppression and YOU could share the wisdom of your ancestors to improve this land,” Klein wrote in the essay, which appears on an anti-Muslim online “ministry” called “The Pen Vs. The Sword.”

Klein, whose Facebook identity, “Altar or Abolish,” is a theocratic play on the Declaration of Independence’s statement that people have the right to “Alter or Abolish” tyrannical governments, wrote in his essay that it’s time to alter and abolish again.

“Today – our liberty is periled from a fourteen hundred century old [sic] belief system that is using our civil liberties to take over and destroy our civil liberties,” he wrote. “Now, in order to save this land from those who come here as a gift – the Trojan Horse of Islam to the ramparts of liberty, America, we need to change the Constitution.”

“This is why I’m glad you are here. You can bring us the wisdom of your ancestors and the pain of your persecution that drove you here. This pain will enable you to resist the siren call of our current intellectuals who have jettisoned the basis of our law that drew you here.”

It’s not only Copts who are apparently listening to Klein. The ex-marine works with the Church at Kaweah’s David Johnson to train Christian militia groups in California and travels the country drumming up support for his theocratic vision of America.

Last year, he spoke to a group of influential Missouri pastors and Christian-right activists, urging them to increase their militancy against Islam. And together with Nasralla, he seems to have breathed new life and a new sense of purpose into Gary Cass’ Christian Anti-Defamation Coalition, a gay-bashing Christian-right organization that has recently expanded its efforts to include anti-Muslim activism.

Last year, Klein, Nasralla and Cass collaborated on a “911 Defend Students Campaign,” which consisted mainly of leafleting California schools with literature portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a sex-crazed pedophile

“When Muslims get power they subjugate all other religions,” Nasrallah said in a press release published jointly with Cass and Klein. “They follow the example of Mohammad who demanded that non-Muslims convert, pay onerous taxes to Muslims, or be killed. Islamic ideology is a threat to religious liberty everywhere and our children must be warned so they never have to endure what I’ve experienced.”