Imagine if there really were a cadre of Christian terrorists: an international group of violent Christians who justified their violence by reference to Biblical texts. Imagine that they had carried out or plotted attacks against innocent people in the U.S. over the last few years in Times Square; Portland, Oregon; Baltimore, Maryland; North Carolina; Texas; and elsewhere. Imagine then that a Congressman announced that he was going to hold hearings on what was causing Christians to be radicalized.
What do you think might happen then? Do you think that Christian leaders would raise such a hue and cry about being targeted and marginalized that that Congressman would be cowed into calling only witnesses such as a fellow Congressman who had taken money from a group with copious ties to the violent Christians? Do you think the President of the United States would be issuing statements seeking to reassure Christians?
No, I don’t, either.
“White House seeks to reassure Muslims,” by Peter Nicholas in the Los Angeles Times, March 7:
The White House took a preemptive step to defuse an emerging controversy Sunday, sending out a top aide to reassure American Muslims that the U.S. government doesn’t see them as a collective threat.
Denis McDonough, deputy national security advisor to President Obama, addressed a largely Muslim audience days before congressional hearings into homegrown Islamic terrorism. The hearings, which sparked protests in New York on Sunday, will be led by Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
In his speech to members of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, McDonough said, “The bottom line is this: When it comes to preventing violent extremism and terrorism in the United States, Muslim Americans are not part of the problem; you’re part of the solution.”
Earlier Sunday, King told CNN’s “State of the Union” that Al Qaeda terrorists were “attempting to recruit within the United States. People in this country are being self-radicalized.”
That is self-evidently true. Look at Khalid Aldawsari, Muhammed Hussain, Mohamed Mohamud, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, etc. etc. etc.
The Obama administration is clearly worried that the hearings, which begin Thursday, could open a rift with Muslim leaders, whose cooperation is needed to foil terrorist recruitment. A message from McDonough’s speech was that the Muslim community is vital to a larger strategy of preventing the radicalization of American youths.
“Our challenge, and the goal that President Obama has insisted that we also focus on, is on the front end: preventing Al Qaeda from recruiting and radicalizing people in America in the first place,” McDonough said. “And we know this isn’t the job of government alone. It has to be a partnership with you “” the communities being targeted most directly by Al Qaeda.”…
King told the Associated Press that he agreed with what McDonough said and had spoken with him Friday. “I think it’s a validation of everything I’ve been trying to do,” King said. “There is a real threat. It’s a serious threat.”
Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society said in an interview that Congress should not “single out” any one community and that Muslim leaders were partners in defeating Islamic extremism.
“We’re doing our best,” he said. “We’re fighting this and we’re in it together.”…
From a February 2008 report: “Another D.C.-area mosque, the ADAMS Center, was founded and financed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been one of the top distributors of Wahhabist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma.”
Also, Imam Mohamed Magid is the President of the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA has admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case.
Rizwan Jaka, a member of the society’s board of trustees, said King’s hearings carried the potential to marginalize Muslims.
A better approach, he said, would be one that treats Muslims as “partners, not suspects.”
King, on CNN, urged the nation to watch the hearings before casting judgment.
“I think the hearing is going to be very productive. It’s going to go forward, and it’s going to talk about something which is not being talked about publicly, which I think should be,” he said.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a Muslim, also appeared on CNN.
“To say we’re going to investigate a religious minority, and a particular one, I think is the wrong course of action to take,” Ellison said. “I don’t want them to be able to stand up and claim, you know, ‘See, we told you, America is at war with Islam.’ That’s one of their main recruiting arguments.”…
Ellison has taken money from the Muslim American Society, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, to finance his pilgrimage to Mecca.