This AP story (thanks to James) chronicles some ugly anti-Muslim incidents that have occurred in the US since the beheading of Paul Marshall Johnson. If these reports are accurate — people writing “Kill all Muslims” on mosque walls and that sort of thing — they are deplorable and inexcusable: targeting innocent people is just the sort of thing the jihadists are despicable for doing, and it is not justified in any way.
However, buried deep in the article, as if it were just another anti-Muslim incident, is this. I have included a couple of the lead-in paragraphs to give you a sense of the context:
In the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin, Mo., vandals painted a swastika and the word “Die” on the wall of the Dar-Ul-Islam mosque.
In Texas, dead fish were dumped near the entrance sign to a mosque under construction in a suburb of Houston.
And in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park, residents urged officials this past week to reject a mosque’s building application. A Baptist pastor told a public hearing he feared it would attract Islamic extremists and violence. The center was approved over boos and catcalls from the audience.
Now wait a minute. Swastikas and dead fish are suddenly equivalent to residents urging officials to reject a mosque’s building application? When that Orland Park story broke, I asked here what assurance the local Muslims had given area non-Muslims that the mosque would NOT attract extremists. How can any mosque assure people that extremists will not enter and recruit there? What safeguards do American mosques have against Islamic radicalism?
If they would spell this out, answering such questions honestly and openly, they would do a great deal to dispel the suspicions and resentment of people who wonder where their loyalties really lie. And dhimmi articles like this one, which lump people with legitimate concerns in with real hatemongers and bigots, just fuel that resentment.