Senate to Hold Hearings on “Anti-Muslim Bigotry”

by Robert Spencer, FrontPageMag

On a day when Islamic jihadists exploded a bomb in Jerusalem that murdered at least one woman and wounded thirty, and when Islamic jihadists opened fire on and killed two Christians outside a church in Pakistan, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) announced that he was going to hold hearings on the rise in “anti-Muslim bigotry.”

Durbin, of course, was retaliating for the hearings recently conducted by Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who himself bowed to politically correct pressure and dropped several witnesses that he had originally announced his intention to call, including ex-Muslim human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and terror analyst Walid Phares.

Not only was the timing of Durbin’s announcement ironic, but also the fact that his retaliatory hearings were unnecessary in the first place. King, after all, gave a prime platform at his hearings to the weepy Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), whose pilgrimage to Mecca was paid for with $13,350 from the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Brotherhood ‘s chief operating arm in the U.S.

Ellison used the bully pulpit King gave him to paint a lurid picture of Muslim victimhood, all the while saying nothing (of course) about the sharp increase in jihad terror plots in this country over the last two years. How can Durbin top that?

The irony of Durbin’s hearings becomes even more acute when one notes that according to the most recent FBI statistics (covering 2009), anti-Jewish attacks account for 70% of hate crimes, and anti-Muslim attacks for only 9% of crimes thus classified. Durbin is preparing to hold hearings about an “anti-Muslim bigotry” that is almost completely nonexistent.

The fact of its near-nonexistence is extremely inconvenient for the Islamic victimhood industry that is now manipulating Durbin; consequently, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslims have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating hate crimes, including attacks on mosques. CAIR and other groups like it want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

But Durbin either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about any of that. Watch for his hearings to be an orgy of Muslim claims of victimhood and demonization of freedom fighters trying to defend Constitutional freedoms against Islamic supremacism. If Durbin really wants to know the cause of what “anti-Muslim bigotry” may actually exist, he need look no farther than Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and so many other jihad murderers and would-be murderers.

If anyone in the United States today is suspicious of Muslims in general, it is because of those jihadis and others like them – and because of Muslim spokesmen like Keith Ellison and CAIR’s Ibrahim “Honest Ibe” Hooper, who never acknowledge that the Muslim community in the U.S. has any responsibility whatsoever to teach against the jihadist view of Islam that they supposedly reject.

Instead, Ellison, Hooper and others like them contrive the picture of Muslim victimhood that snares dupes and useful idiots like Durbin – and in doing so, end up increasing the “anti-Muslim bigotry” they decry. Americans aren’t fools, and they can spot liars and deceivers when they see them. The complete lack of Muslim spokesmen who will acknowledge jihad activity honestly and forthrightly stand against in both word and deed has not gone unnoticed. The “anti-Muslim bigotry” industry, in sum, is generated by Muslims and perpetuated by Muslims. And only Muslims have the power to end that bigotry.

Here’s how they can do it, if they care to:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.

2. Renounce definitively, sincerely, honestly, and in deeds, not just in comforting words, not just “terrorism,” but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, they should clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people, teaching accordingly in mosques and Islamic schools, and behaving in accord with these new teachings. All this should be done in ways that can be verified by non-Muslim observers.

3. Teach, again sincerely and honestly, in transparent and verifiable ways in mosques and Islamic schools, the imperative of Muslims coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, and act accordingly.

4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach sincerely against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.

5. Actively and honestly work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

If Muslims did those five things, voila! “Anti-Muslim bigotry” will evanesce almost immediately!

But this is not a perspective that will get a hearing from Richard Durbin.