“The United States government is intent on targeting all marginalized communities,” stated American Muslim activist and author Maha Hilal during a February 23 Georgetown University webinar. Introducing her new book, Innocent until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience since 9/11, she presented America’s post-9/11 defensive War on Terror (WOT) as manifesting America’s inherent evil.
Hilal spoke for Georgetown’s Saudi-founded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). Her moderator was Mobashra Tazamal, a senior research fellow at ACMCU’s Bridge Initiative, which, in the name of combating “Islamophobia,” defames any and all critics of Islam. Fittingly, Hilal announced that her book examined “how deeply entrenched ‘Islamophobia’ has been in the War on Terror from the very beginning.”
Always the victim, Hilal claimed that the “very intentional targets of the war on terror” were not the Americans and others attacked by jihadists such as Al Qaeda, but Muslims. She marveled at the “uncomfortable fact” that at the American military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “all of those detained have been Muslim,” as if non-Muslims were responsible for 9/11 and its aftermath. “It’s not a coincidence,” she added, affecting an air of profound insight.
Quoting from the book, Tazamal noted Hilal’s rejection of the American “state manufactured and sold the story of good versus evil.” Hilal questioned Americans who accepted government claims that the “terrorists attacked us for our freedom.” “Did the American public have any information to the contrary? Were they reading about what these terrorist organizations actually stated about explanations for why they have attacked the United States?” she asked. She did not explain how reading, for example, about Osama bin Laden’s theocratic demands for destroying America’s close ally Israel or expulsion of American influence from strategically vital Middle Eastern areas would worry Americans any less.
Meanwhile Muslims themselves suffered “internalized ‘Islamophobia,’” a “form of internalized oppression,” Hilal asserted. “Muslims are absorbing problematic ideas, dominant narratives and tropes about Islam” such as it being “uniquely patriarchal” or “inherently violent,” she stated, as if doctrinal concerns about Islam were illegitimate. “The constructions of terrorism are also built upon ideas about Muslims, specifically that they are . . . opposed to normative democratic values,” she likewise added, oblivious to the sad lack of stable democracies in the Muslim world.
Descending into moral relativism, Hilal peddled the hackneyed trope that “there is no agreed upon definition of terrorism,” as if intentional violence against civilians for political purposes did not suffice. “You could easily apply the definitions and the words spoken by government officials to acts of the United States itself,” but “terrorism is basically what we say it is,” she claimed. “The United States kills plenty of women and children” who come into crossfire as the American military targets terrorists, she argued, as if moral dilemmas of collateral damage made self-defense illegitimate.
Hilal’s moral obtuseness was equally obvious in her analysis of the 2008 conviction in federal court of the Holy Land Foundation for, she noted, lending “material support for terrorism” to Hamas. Under American law this charge includes “providing a training on nonviolent tactics to a group that is constructed as a terrorist organization,” she noted with bewilderment, rejecting federal law prohibiting aid to killers. Tellingly, she considered this blanket ban “overly broad and criminalizing,” although admitting the “fungibility” of this support, such that any aid to terrorist organizations frees resources for violent activities.
For Hilal such laws are “particularly problematic” in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. She suggested that organizations like the Holy Land Foundation merely donated to Hamas in order to alleviate human suffering, whitewashing how Hamas regularly diverts any such aid to terrorism against Israelis. This is a “very calculated way of criminalizing and demonizing anyone who would dare to support individuals that are in need,” she lied, adding for good measure that the “U.S. government wants to criminalize Muslims and Muslim communities.”
Accordingly, Hilal called on the U.S. “to dismantle in the war on terror” effective law enforcement measures such as “surveillance” and “federal terrorism prosecution.” She decried unspecified “draconian immigration policies” post-9/11 that sought “to really cement and entrench criminality into the ways we understand immigration,” even though many of the 9/11 hijackers violated immigration laws. Her opposition to “militarism and warfare” included the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) as an “institutionalization of bases in the continent of Africa” and a “strong foothold for further colonialism and imperialism.”
Post-9/11 American actions against jihadist threats simply confirmed America’s irredeemable evil for Hilal, as she dismissed the concept of “American exceptionalism.” The WOT “is rooted in the United States’ commitment to state violence, to imperialism, to neocolonialism,” she argued. Demonstrating her ignorance of past American conflicts with end dates, including the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the World Wars, she asserted that “U.S. wars don’t end. They just form into new wars that preserve the brutality of wars past.”
The decades after 9/11 provide numerous complex questions concerning democracies’ self-defense against terrorists, but by hosting Hilal, Georgetown chose to promote Islamist propaganda. Islamic framing does not make her tale of a rapacious America and maligned, misunderstood foreigners any more original than numerous other anti-American screeds dating back to at least the 1960s. Hilal has yet again given an example of the need to end the enormous waste of taxpayer and tuition dollars in Middle East studies that produces false narratives designed to weaken the West’s capacity for self-defense.
Andrew E. Harrod, a Middle East Forum Campus Watch Fellow, freelance researcher, and writer, is a fellow with the Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter: @AEHarrod.
spiro says
As long as this country tolerates this crap and we allowed our government and so called education system to go unchallenged were done as a free society
Peacelover says
agree and I tell ya’,a civil war on several accounts seems to be calling
mortimer says
The ‘crap’ Spiro refers to is Maha Hilal’s pungent, hot-steaming piles of farm-fresh TAQIYYA.
Whenever Muslims have NO ARGUMENT against valid concerns raised about Islamic teachings, they try to LIE THEIR WAY OUT OF IT using Islam’s patented sacred prevarication known as ‘TAQIYYA’.
Maha Hilal makes liberal use of this malodorous deception. But well-informed kafirs like Mr. Greenfield have a perfect awareness of Hilal’s misleading tactics.
Prof. Harold Franfurt wrote a treatise (‘On Bullshit) describing the tactics of prevaricators like Maha Hilal.
Franfurt said that the bullshitter has a complete disregard whether what he’s saying corresponds to facts in the physical world. A bullshitter (such as Hilal) “does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
Taqiyya is in the same category, but it is sanctioned by Allah to deceive non-Muslims.
Islam is an ‘HONOR/SHAME’ culture, so ‘HONOR’ is more important to a Muslim than facts. If lies enhance the ‘HONOR’ of Islam, then Muslims like Maha Hilal will gladly lie.
mortimer says
correction not ‘Greenfield’ … meant to say, ‘Mr.Andrew Harrod’ …
gravenimage says
Yes–Maha Hilal has lied and said that “whether authorities classify an act as “terrorist” depends almost entirely on who carries it out, not what they did”–as though we would have had no problem with the horrors of 9/11 if it hadn’t been done by Muslims!
John says
So if life is so miserable for Muslims in America, why don’t they LEAVE? I can promise no non Muslim American (who’s not mentally ill) would ever emigrate to a Muslim country. (They don’t let you in anyway, unless you want to work as a semi slave in the Arab oil countries, where you or your offspring are never given citizenship).
Georgetown used to be a Catholic Jesuit institution. This Saudi funded Center for Muslim Christian understanding is a joke. Nothing but a platform for crybaby Muslims who play the victim card as they emigrate here, push and push (and reproduce in alarmingly high rates) to fundamentally change this country. France will soon look like Lebanon. In 100 years, if things don’t change, so will the United States.
mortimer says
Maha Hilal is trying to implement discriminatory Sharia blasphemy law by secular means.
Sharia ‘blasphemy’ law actually covers more than mere ‘blasphemy’ against Islam. It controls ALL and ANY speech that involves or speaks directly about Islam.
Islam is an ‘HONOR/SHAME’ culture, and so it doesn’t matter whether a comment about Islam is true or false. The mullahs lie all the time to their congregations, to other Muslims, to other sects of Muslims, and to the non-Muslim kufaar. It is considered ‘halal’ (permissible) in Islam to lie in order to calm a controversy, so the mullahs lie whenever an embarrassing, but true fact about Islam is brought to the public’s attention. They lie their way out of it. Example: FGM? No … there is NOTHING like that in Islam, they will immediately say.
So Maha Hilal knows this. She is a whopping big LIAR paid to tell falsehoods to the kufaar and hoodwink the kufaar into putting the Sharia law noose around their necks.
Nuts.
mortimer says
Here are two more examples of TAQIYYA (verbal jihad) in the words of Maha Hilal.
Quotes: she claims that Islam is not “uniquely patriarchal” or “inherently violent”.
Well, that illustrates my point about her being a whopping great LIAR.
The headscarf she wears is 100% “uniquely patriarchal” and the Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood organizations she defends are “inherently violent”.
A statistical analysis of themes in the PRIMARY ISLAMIC SOURCE TEXTS show that the text is full of calls for violence against non-Muslims.
About 31% of the primary Islamic ‘Trilogy’ involves armed warfare against disbelieving kafirs.
-9% of the Koranic text is devoted to jihad;
-21% of the hadiths of Bukhari is devoted to jihad;
-67% of the Sira is devoted to jihad;
-31% of all text in the Islamic Trilogy is devoted to jihad which is a total of 327,547 words devoted to jihad.
Total text in the ‘Trilogy’ devoted to jihad: 31%
-328,000 words in the Islamic trilogy devoted to jihad-political violence against non-Muslims and apostates.
There is an irrefutable statistical basis for the claim that Islam is ‘inherently violent’ and Hilal produces no evidence for her counter-claim. Her counter-claim is more TAQIYYA and she knows it.
mortimer says
Andrew Harrod draws attention to Maha Hilal’s use of the Islamic VICTIMOLOGY tactic used to gain sympathy for ordinary Muslims, while distracting our attention from the violent jihadists.
This TACTIC is known under the words TAMASKAN TATAMAKAN. The Arabist, Mark Durie explains:
“Islamic theology impacts culture through its victimology language: Tamaskan tatamakan = “Show a victim’s face, and you will take over”.
.The theological roots of this saying are complex, but the cultural habit is clear and simple.
Act the victim, and then after a while, you’ll take over the other person. So we are interacting. I pretend that I’m in a bad situation and I’m suffering. You have pity on me and when the money comes, I destroy you.” – Mark Durie, PhD
gravenimage says
+1
tim gallagher says
Muslims murder over 3000 people in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Muslims are the real victims. She has shit for brains and is an evil scumbag to even try to put forward such lying crap. I can’t believe that there are actually people who buy such garbage from maggots like this woman. It’s a bit like saying that the Russians are the real victims, and not the Ukrainians, of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Muslim mindset is so bent and twisted that it seems to believe that although Muslims commit endless atrocities all around the world, somehow they are always the victims. Then, if and when Muslims do gain power, all non-Muslims are genuinely victimised appallingly. Anytime a Muslim’s lips are moving, they are lying to all of us non-Muslims.
gravenimage says
Yep.
john smith says
I got into 5 minutes of this video, and that was 5 minutes to much. No way was I going to listen to an hour and a half of this shit. She starts off by talking about us islamophobes, and then about her book of hate, which she labels “a labor of love”. Then she goes on to say, “that all those detained in Guantanamo Bay detention camp were muslims”, Not to mention the reason why they were detained in the first place. That was enough for me, I’d just wasted 5 minutes of my life, I couldn’t take anymore of this shit.
abu taleb says
Muslims should be given free money, should be able to pick infidel women for their sex slaves and should be able to humiliate infidels because of their status as muslims. Anything below that means muslims are victimized.
It reminds me to a muslim who once said that muslims has made a big sacrifice by allowing non muslims to live in the country. Must be because the non muslims are not paying jizyah and live equally with muslims without surrendering their women.
Walter Sieruk says
On the day of September 9, 2016 some man I know who works as a security guard at a public place told me a Muslim actually had the nerve to walk over to him and said to him two Muslim “Jokes” about 9/11. As if it was a funny subject. It’s wrong to even try to “joke” about 9/11. Talk about bad “jokes” those two are the very much worst of all.
The first was “What is the difference between September 11, 20001 and a cow?” answer “You don’t keep milking a cow after fifteen years.” Not only is that “joke” awful but those Muslims trying to be funny by say that cruel thing do have some gall because they have no room to talk. For they are still “milking” the topic of the crusades and the crusades have been over for well more than seven hundred years. What gall they have !
The second “Muslim “joke” about 9/11 is “On September 11, 2001, the people trapped on the upper floors of the WTC had ordered their pizza sent to them plane.” To say that such “humor” is terrible is an understatement. Furthermore, those Muslim who say those “jokes” are really only exposing their own sick, vicious, callous and heartless Islamic mindset.”
gravenimage says
Yes–I’ve heard these disgusting “jokes” before, Walter. What could be funnier than murdered Infidels? *Ugh*.
James Lincoln says
Interestingly, when you watch the YouTube video embedded in the feature article, the comments are turned off.
How convenient.
john smith says
Yes James, how very convenient. I also noticed it only had two likes, I wish they would show the dislikes,
Walter Sieruk says
On September 11,2001 many Muslims rejoiced in different countries around the world then they found about the outcome of those al Qaeda jihad attacks in which so many people died. They were so glad and happy about all those people who died in such terrible ways.
The reason they felt so happy with joy is because, as the Bible explains such people have had “their conscience seared with a hot iron.” First Timothy 4:2. {K.J.V.] For them that “hot iron” is Islam
Peacelover says
I remember sometime after,seeing footage of one of ‘them’ watching what was happening and actually clapping his hands gleefully and he was doing that right here in the U.S. right outside the city. Sickening {and ‘we’ keep bringing ‘them’ into this country,again,sickening}.
nicholas tesdorf says
To be an expert on Islamophobia, one does not need to know anything about Islam or the Qur’an.
tim gallagher says
I was throwing out some stuff that’s been hanging around in my house for ages and came across a short booklet which was put out by a government department in the state of New South wales, here in Australia, titled “Islam and Muslim communities”. It would date back to the mid- 1990s. I never read it, but I glanced at it. It is aimed to get people to have a more friendly view of Muslims. It included this: “One group of people about whom there are many misconceptions and stereotypes in the general community are Muslims. These misconceptions and stereotypes arise from a lack of knowledge about islam in the general Australian community exacerbated by a tendency in the media to highlight apparent differences in values when running stories relating to the Muslim people.” I suspect that similar things are put out by governments in many counties. However, I immediately thought that the opposite is true. I think that if a person does research islam and comes to learn about its vile content, then such a person is more likely to have a negative opinion of Islam and Muslims. Also, the incompatible values that Muslims hold also become clear to people who bother to learn about islam’s content. The differences in values are real, not “apparent” but untrue, as the booklet seems to be implying. I know that when I began to look into islam’s nature, I came away with a more negative view of it.
gravenimage says
Yes, Tim–this clueless whitewash of Islam has been around for a long time.
tim gallagher says
No doubt about that, gravenimage. It struck me how wrong the nonsense in this booklet was. When i knew nothing about islam, I didn’t know what to make of it. I only began to read up on it because, here in Australia, just as in so many other countries, I began to notice pretty appalling behaviour from the Muslims, thuggish and criminal behaviour that we hadn’t seen out here before, so I thought I’d try to work out what islam was all about. Also, a man like Robert Spencer seems to me to know as much about islam’s true nature as anybody and he clearly, with all his knowledge, has not decided that islam, once you understand it, is fine and dandy, because plainly it isn’t..
gravenimage says
Yes–I started to seriously study Islam after 9/11.
James Lincoln says
tim gallagher,
Government publications regarding islam can be influenced by Muslim brotherhood front organizations.
The hope is that infidels will not do independent research – and will view these pamphlets, booklets, etc., as truth rather than propaganda.
tim gallagher says
Yes, James, I’m sure that there would have been a lot of input from the Muslim community, who would have been whingeing in their usual way about being the unfair victims of discrimination. I think this booklet was aimed at the social worker type employees of a government department and aimed to get them to be very sympathetic towards the Muslims they dealt with. As you say, we all need to take the time to do some research into the nature of Islam and not accept the propaganda such as this booklet contained. I couldn’t be bothered reading much of it and threw it out. I had it sitting on a bookshelf for ages and maybe thought I’d get around to reading it some day but it wasn’t worth reading. It probably didn’t fool all that many people.
gravenimage says
‘Islamophobia Expert’ at Georgetown: 9/11’s Real Victims Are Muslims
……………
I’ve heard this grotesque claptrap before. If you object to Muslims murdering you for Islam you are “victimizing” them. *Ugh*.
tim gallagher says
That’s how I see it as well, gravenimage. I find it ridiculous that Muslims, maybe because it is what they think their bullshit god says is the way things should be, seem to think that they should be free to go on murdering non-Muslims and we are supposed to just put up with it and not even attack Islam and its murderous followers. They have a very weird way of viewing things..
gravenimage says
Yes–this is orthodox Islam.
Also the Arab saying “Show a victim’s face and take over”.
libertyORdeath says
What a joke. I won’t even pain other readers by refuting her hilariously childish claims. I’ll simply place a wager…this “expert” will NEVER debate these issues with someone like Mr. Spencer who knows islam as well or most probably better than she does.
The really sad part is that the “islamophobia” industry is growing just as fast as the “racism” and “diversity” sectors of our society. It will not end well if it continues.
OLD GUY says
She needs to leave America ware she is so mistreated and go live where women are so well cherished and respected by her muslim male sharia loving countrymen. I’am sure her life style would be so much better and she would not have to see and deal with us christians who love our freedom and opportunity to succeed in life.