You can take this to the bank; whenever you see an article titled Setting the Record Straight on Islam, it’s guaranteed to be a soft-ball, no-hard-questions, Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace shmooze fest.

When about two dozen Muslim leaders from around the world came to Westbury’s Islamic Center of Long Island Friday, Rev. Mark Lukens, a visitor, recalled a troubling question about Muslims he once fielded from a young member of his church.

“Why do they hate us?” was the question, said Lukens, pastor of Bethany Congregational Church of East Rockaway.

Yesterday the Muslim leaders met with a like number of Island Christians and Jews at the Islamic Center, hoping to dispel what they said are misconceptions about the Islamic faith that have led many Americans to regard the religion as dominated by violent fanatics.

“What I would like to know is what would you like me to communicate to my congregation about Muslim people?” Lukens asked the Muslim leaders, who included academics and government officials from as far away as Egypt, India, Nigeria and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

That Rev. Lukens sure knows how to dig for the hard answers.

These are the very people who should be standing up to reclaim their religion from the fanatics and murderers, yet they’re far more concerned with issuing the standard denials and diversions.

Members of the Islamic delegation said the prevailing view of Muslims has been taken by violent extremists, and has been unfairly shaped by press accounts of Taliban excesses, suicide bombings, and the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Yes, those press accounts. So unfair. What with how they show the facts and all. Damned unfair. (Is that a faint odor of “Zionist-controlled media” I smell?)

Recalling the invasion of the Middle East by Christian Crusaders, and the bloody conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, they said violence is no more an intrinsic element of Islam than it is of Christianity.

Guys, please. What is up with this Crusaders thing? Get a grip. It was A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. Sorry for shouting. But when are you Islamic mouthpieces going to realize how crazy this makes you look?

Al-Shieck Ahmad Lemo, president of the Islamic Educational Endowment in Nigeria, said it would be similarly unfair to view Catholicism as somehow immoral because of the sexual indiscretions of a handful of Catholic priests and bishops.

“Is that a justification for me to judge all of Christianity?” Lemo said. “That would be absolutely wrong.”

Whatever. (By the way, is that pronounced “Lame-o?”)

What we’re seeing here is the first wave of that $20 million propaganda campaign the Arab/Islamic states recently announced.

The Westbury meeting was part of a three-day visit to the New York area by the Muslim leaders, who are seeking to rehabilitate the image of a religion practiced by more than a quarter of the world’s population, and in communities from Indonesia to Islip.

The tour, which was organized by the Muslim World League, an Islamic group with offices in Falls Church, Va., also will have stops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

I think I’ll be watching for these guys to show up here in LA. I know how to really bring about some “understanding” at one of these cheerleading sessions—mention Israel, or ask them if they condemn terrorism.

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