Far Left Muslim sympathizers at Huffington Post wonder: “Is America is becoming more Islamophobic?”

Far Left Muslim sympathizers at Huffington Post wonder: “Is America is becoming more Islamophobic?”

First of all, there is no such thing as ‘Islamophobia.’ Fear, distrust, and suspicion about Islam, and the supremacist behavior of its followers, not only is entirely rational, it is basic to ensuring the survival of Western culture, freedom, and justice.

In light of that, Americans ARE becoming more anti-Islam, as they witness repeated attempts by Muslims in America to impose sharia law, demanding and getting special accommodation for their religious needs, conspiring, with the help of wealthy Arab donors, to facilitate the teaching of Islam in public schools, not to mention the surge in threats from Muslim terrorists in America and the near daily atrocities committed by Muslim terrorist groups all around the world.

Huffington Post  In August 2010, the cover of Time asked “Is America Islamophobic?” Bobby Ghosh wrote the featured article in response to the intense and at times ugly debate surrounding the proposed “Ground zero Victory Mosque” aka Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan that engulfed the nation that summer. 

Five years later, it’s worth revisiting the question. Is America Islamophobic? Better yet, has America become more Islamophobic in the five years since the Ground Zero Victory Mosque controversy? Much of the evidence points to a sobering answer. The 9/11 Mosque controversy was the beginning of a new phase of anti-Muslim hostility that shows no signs of abating. Consider the following:

• HATE CRIMES: According to FBI reports, anti-Muslim hate crimes (the majority of which are graffiti on mosques) are five times more common today than before 9/11, and the average number of hate crimes per year since 2010 has been higher than in the three years preceding the Ground Zero Victory Mosque controversy. This data does not even include some of the horrific violence witnessed in the past year, such as the execution-style murders of three Muslims in Chapel Hill, NC.  (Determined by police NOT to have been a bias crime)

• MOSQUES: According to data provided by the ACLU and the Pew Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, conflicts over mosques, including efforts to prevent the construction of mosques and graffiti attacks on mosques, have increased since the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Between 2005-2007, there were nine such conflicts or episodes, a number that increased to twenty between 2008-2010. From 2010-2012, the number of anti-mosque disputes rose to eighty-nine. That’s a 345% increase from the preceding period and likely due in part to the orchestrated campaign against the Ground Zero Victory Mosque led by the likes of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

• SURVEILLANCE AND PROFILING: The FBI/NYPD continue to rely heavily on the use of informants to infiltrate mosques and communities in an effort to see how willing Muslims are to participate in terrorist activity. A recent case involved the arrest of three Brooklyn men for plotting to join ISIS. . Last year, the far left wing Human Rights Watch labeled the FBI use of informants to participate in terrorist plots as “abusive” and bordering on entrapment. 

• The NYPD’s own surveillance program of Muslim communities was made known to the public in 2011. It too relied on informants as well as “mosque crawlers” and various methods of religious profiling to target potential terrorists. The NYPD disbanded the program in 2014 (under the notorious Muslim-pandering Mayor Bill deBlasio), but it has not formally renounced some of its  surveillance tactics, including the use of informants, the labeling of some mosques as “terrorism enterprises,” and the reliance on a theory of radicalization that links almost any devout Muslim man with being on a path toward radicalization.

• PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS: The last presidential race witnessed the most prominent examples of political anti-Islam sentiment to date. At one GOP debate, Newt Gingrich compared Muslim Americans to Nazis, insisting that just as the latter tried to infiltrate the U.S. during World War II, and Muslims are trying to do the same today. On another occasion, Gingrich claimed, “Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States.” Herman Cain indicated in an interview that, if elected, he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet or as a federal judge. He also echoed Gingrich’s concerns about sharia, insisting that there was a “creeping attempt…to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government.”

• The 2016 presidential race already includes a field with a recent history of anti-Islamic rhetoric. Rick Santorum accused Presidents Bush and Obama of giving “all Muslims a pass for identifying a cancer within their own body.” The disease in question was presumably “Islamic terrorism.”Ted Cruz argued that sharia law in the U.S. is an “enormous problem.”Rand Paul compared the Muslims who wanted to build the Ground Zero Victory Mosque to the KKK. Lindsey Graham suggested that the Charleston shooter’s decision to sit in a bible study for an hour before opening fire reflects “Mideast hate” (a euphemism for “Islamic hate”).Mike Huckabee maintained that Islam “promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet.” Based on these sentiments, it’s a safe bet that the anti-Islam rhetoric will be amplified for the 2016 race.

• ANTI-SHARIA LAWS: The fear that sharia is taking over the U.S., articulated by some of the current presidential contenders, is more deeply rooted in the country. A movement to ban sharia law in the states, orchestrated by an anti-Muslim lawyer named David Yerushalmi, emerged in 2010 in Oklahoma. In the past five years, eight states have voted to ban sharia law, and a majority of states have seen bills introduced proposing such a ban. 

Anti-Sharia legislation is being debated in many states. Several bills have been passed. Those “rejected” only means that they will be brought back for consideration in the next year and every year thereafter, until passed.

• ANTI-ISLAM ‘HATE’ RALLIES: The recent “Draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, TX, attracted considerable media attention for the two extremists who tried to open fire at the event. But the event, led by Pamela Geller, also revealed the attraction of hate rallies that engage in Muslim-bashing under the pretense of defending freedom of speech. The Garland event inspired an anti-Islam rally outside a Phoenix mosque almost a month later. That rally, however, upped the ante by encouraging participants to come armed in order to defend their freedom of speech. Similar rallies are planned for later in the summer.

Winning Muhammad Cartoon by Bosh Fawstin

• MEDIA: Anti-Islam rhetoric is rampant in all forms of mass media (We wish!). Oscar-contending films from the past several years have featured hoards of angry, violent, anti-American Muslims who are thwarted by white American heroes, from Argo to Zero Dark Thirty to American Sniper. Muslims prone to violence and terrorism are also central to the plotlines of recent award-winning television shows such as Homeland. The image of Muslims in the U.S. news media has also declined since 2010. According to a Media Tenor study, just over 40 percent of network news coverage of Muslims was negative in 2010. By 2013, almost three-quarters of coverage depicted Muslims in a negative light and usually in relation to violence or terrorism.

Much more could be added to this list, including Representative Peter King’s hearings in 2011 on the radicalization of Muslim Americans, or the media’s ongoing reluctance to apply the word “terrorist” to anyone who is not Muslim. What is clear is that Islamophobia did not fade with the Ground Zero Victory Mosque  defeat.  If anything, it has intensified. Most polls confirm the persistence of this anxiety in the broader population. For example, recent polls from reveal that a majority of Americans have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Islam.