Just over a week ago, the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee held the first of a series of hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims.
This isn’t an incredibly controversial move, once you take into consideration that America has been at war with violent Islamists for nearly a decade and homegrown terrorist plots more recently.
But the left never misses an opportunity to characterize the right as bigoted.
As has become customary, every criticism of violent Islamists raised at the hearing was preceded by obligatory caveats, such as, “Islam is a religion of peace,” and, “the vast majority of American Muslims are peace loving and patriotic.”
I believe the same to be true. I believe most Muslims in this country are wonderful people who contribute to America’s greatness.
I’m only concerned with the small percentage that rejects American ideals in favor of a religious-extremist worldview.
Unfortunately, the last few sentences were wasted ink, because no matter how many times Republicans preemptively topple the "Islamophobic" straw man, Democrats find a way of shamelessly propping him back up, just to score political points.
In his Huffington Post column, James Zogby said of the hearings, “The Islamophobia we are witnessing today is the latest campaign by bigots to tear apart the very fabric of America.”
That is an ugly accusation, and one that should not be so lightly applied to people simply because of political differences.
Despite what the left would have us believe, the hearings were not designed to paint Muslims with a broad brush. Rather, they were intended as an open and honest dialogue about Islamic radicalization, a serious threat to national security that specifically impacts American Muslims.
President Barack Obama’s administration itself has sounded warnings. According to Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, “Al-Qaeda and its adherents have increasingly turned to another troubling tactic: attempting to recruit and radicalize people to terrorism here in the United States.”
The focus of Rep. Peter King, R-NY, a committee chairman, is not on the average American Muslim. It is on the Muslim leader who plays a dubious role in fostering and shielding homegrown terrorists.
Two of the three witnesses called on by the “Islamophobic” King were Muslims, and the testimony of all three deserved serious consideration and not disregard by Democrats on the committee.
Abdirizak Bihi, whose nephew was killed fighting in Somalia after being radicalized in the U.S., testified that the Muslim leaders in his community not only discouraged him from working with police, but “as a matter of fact, they threatened [him], intimidated [him], and not only [him], the whole families.”
Bihi’s testimony was admittedly anecdotal, but unless you believe that King tricked him into making damaging statements about his own religious leaders, it’s hard to see why his story and others like it don’t merit consideration and even justify the hearings all by themselves.
The Islamists are on the offensive, not just militarily, but on the battlefield of ideas as well. Let us not be afraid to level criticism against this violent offshoot. It belittles the peaceful Muslim majority to imagine that they cannot discern between sober criticism of violent extremists within their religion and wholesale discrimination against them all.
Reach David at dcolthar@asu.edu
