In Human Events this morning I discuss who is really responsible for suspicion of Muslims in the U.S.:
The idea that hatred and bigotry motivates suspicion of Muslims in the U.S. has become so commonplace that Muslims are now claiming it is even behind the prosecution of jihad terror cases.
Last Friday, a federal jury convicted three North Carolina Muslims, Omar Aly Hassan, Ziyad Yaghi, and Hysen Sherifi, of plotting jihad terror attacks against the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., as well as against targets abroad. According to prosecutors, the primary motive of the three was to kill those whom they believed to be enemies of Islam. But after the verdict was announced, Hysen Sherifi’s mother shouted that the prosecutors were “racist vultures.”
This is the same old story we have seen played out so many, many, many times: Instead of taking responsibility for their actions, instead of owning up to what they tried to do for their religion and facing their punishment like the warriors they claim to be, Islamic jihadists and their supporters claim victim status. They grant nothing, they admit nothing.
Although this is a transparent attempt to deflect scrutiny and avoid suspicion, it actually arouses more suspicion of Muslims in the U.S., because people aren’t stupid: They see stories like the one about this North Carolina jihad plot and know that racism and post-9/11 paranoia had nothing to do with this conviction, which was based on clear evidence that was duly weighed by an impartial jury.
People know that concerns about Muslims in America stem not from bigotry, but from the numerous jihad terror plots that have been hatched in the name of Islam. And they see the disingenuousness and finger-pointing of Muslim leaders in America who should be, if they really were what they claim to be, acknowledging the problem of jihadist sentiments among Muslims in the U.S., and working sincerely to root it out. If Muslim groups in America ever even once admitted that there really was a problem of young Muslims turning to jihad terror in this country, then a great deal of the suspicion of Muslims in America would dissipate, because non-Muslims would see that Muslim leaders were at least making a good-faith effort to deal with the problem. Instead, they don’t even admit that there is a problem.
When suspicions arise, however, even that doesn’t make Muslim leaders in the U.S. start to be more honest. Instead, they ascribe it to a rise in “Islamophobia–”for example, the prominent Muslim spokesman Reza Aslan is traveling around the country peddling the claim that “whatever is fearful, whatever is frightening, whatever is uncomfortable, is being tagged as Islam.”
This is so absurd it beggars belief: Aslan pretends that jihad terror plots are not happening, and that concern about Muslims in this country is therefore sheer nativism and bigotry. His sleazy dishonesty, however, then ends up creating more of the concern about Muslims here that he sees as evidence of this nativism, so that actually he himself and others like him, as well as Muslims like Omar Aly Hassan, Ziyad Yaghi, and Hysen Sherifi, are the ones who are really responsible for any suspicion of Muslims that actually exists….