“War is deceit,” said Muhammad. And Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S. took the message to heart. “Islamophobia” is a manipulative neologism designed to intimidate non-Muslims into thinking it is “racist” and “bigoted” to resist jihad and Islamic supremacism. As such it coincides nicely with the Left’s increasingly open authoritarian impulse to shut down all dissent.
See also “Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future,” which I coauthored with David Horowitz.
“Hate-Crime Stats Deflate “˜Islamophobia” Myth,” by David J. Rusin in National Review, January 11:
A detailed analysis of FBI statistics covering ten full calendar years
since the 9/11 terrorist attacks reveals that, on a per capita basis,
American Muslims, contrary to spin, have been subjected to hate crimes
less often than other prominent minorities. From 2002 to 2011, Muslims
are estimated to have suffered hate crimes at a frequency of 6.0
incidents per 100,000 per year — 10 percent lower than blacks (6.7), 48
percent lower than homosexuals and bisexuals (11.5), and 59 percent
lower than Jews (14.8). Americans should keep these numbers in mind
whenever Islamists attempt to silence critics by invoking Muslim
victimhood.The federal government defines a hate crime
as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole
or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability,
ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.” Though statutes mandating harsher
punishments for hatred-inspired acts raise the specter of thought crimes,
emphasize group identity over the individual, and seemingly favor
certain victims over others, the FBI”s tracking of such deeds shines
important light on the state of the nation. Annual reports assembled
from local law-enforcement data are accessible on the website
of the FBI”s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Especially useful is
Table 1 of each compilation, which summarizes the number of incidents,
offenses, victims, and known offenders for hate crimes committed against
members of different groups.No class of hate crimes has seen more fluctuation than anti-Muslim
ones. The norm was a few dozen incidents per year in the late 1990s, but
the number jumped from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001, a spike attributed to post-9/11 backlash. However, it dropped to 155 in 2002 and held remarkably steady through 2006, before falling again to 115 in 2007, 105 in 2008, and 107 in 2009.Anti-Muslim incidents rose to 160 in 2010, an increase that Islamists and their mouthpieces eagerly blamed
on rampant “Islamophobia,” particularly opposition to a proposed giant
mosque near Ground Zero. Based on freshly released FBI data, there was little change in 2011, with 157 incidents, 175 offenses, 185 victims, and 138 known offenders. Mark Potok of the reliably leftist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which puts foes of radical Islam in the same category as Klansmen and neo-Nazis, has declared
that “hate crimes against perceived Muslims . . . remained at
relatively high levels” as a result of “Islam-bashing propaganda,”
anti-Sharia legislation, and ongoing resistance to new mosques, relaying
that “several were attacked by apparent Islamophobes.” Note the key
word: “several” in a country with at least 2,106 mosques, a few million Muslims, and 300 million–plus non-Muslims.As hinted above, the dark portrait of America as a nation of violent bigots uniquely hostile
to Muslims does not withstand quantitative scrutiny. To smooth out
year-to-year variations, consider the past decade (2002–11) of
FBI-recorded hate crimes. There were 1,388 incidents against Muslims
during this span, compared with 25,130 against blacks; 12,030 against
homosexuals and bisexuals; 9,198 against Jews; and 5,057 against
Hispanics. Even majority whites endured 7,185 incidents, while
Christians (Protestants and Catholics combined) were targeted in 1,126
incidents. Adherents of “other religions” faced 1,335, very close to the
anti-Muslim tally….Why do Islamists obfuscate? The false picture of an epidemic of
physical assaults on Muslims distracts Americans from Islamist hatred
and enshrines Muslims as the country”s leading victim class, a strategy
intended to intimidate citizens into remaining quiet about Islamic
supremacism and lay the groundwork for granting Muslims special
privileges and protections at the expense of others. In short,
anti-Muslim hate crimes are a powerful Islamist weapon.At its extreme, the desire to achieve victim status in this manner has fueled the phenomenon of fake hate crimes, through staging, blatant misrepresentation, or both. An illustrative example is the March 2012 murder of Shaima Alawadi,
a hijab-wearing California woman found beaten to death at home with a
note calling her a terrorist beside her body. Islamists and their
credulous media allies pounced at the opportunity to condemn the supposed tidal wave of “Islamophobia,” even as marital problems emerged as a potential motive. In November, police arrested Alawadi’s husband.
Read it all.