Saturday, October 01, 2011

You’re Not Paranoid if They’re Really Out to Get You

Robert Spencer and David Horowitz are asking if fear of Islam deserves the commonplace charge that it’s “irrational”:

In recent months, several reports have appeared to a generally uncritical reception in the press, which purport to expose alleged conspiracies organized by “Islamophobes” against American citizens who mean us no harm. These reports single out for condemnation a dozen prominent conservative figures (and mostly the same dozen) who have publicly criticized the misogyny, bigotry, and terrorism promoted by many (but not all) Islamic institutions and religious texts.

The term “Islamophobia” itself was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the political fountainhead of Islamic terror, having spawned al-Qaeda and created Hamas. Not coincidently, the reports themselves have been produced by Brotherhood fronts like CAIR, and jihadist apologists like the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the latest and most elaborate Islamophobia report, transparently derivative of its predecessors, has been issued by the Center for American Progress, which is a brain trust of the Democratic party. It thus marks a disturbing development in this ugly campaign.

On examination, the term “Islamophobia” is designed to create a modern-day thought crime, while the campaign to suppress it is an effort to abolish the First Amendment where Islam is concerned. The purpose of the suffix — phobia — is to identify any concern about troubling Islamic institutions and actions as irrational, or worse as a dangerous bigotry that should itself be feared.

Is fear of terrorists inspired by Islam irrational? There have been 17,800 terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims in the name of Allah since 9/11. Is it unreasonable to be concerned that 30,000 shoulder-ready surface-to-air missiles have recently gone missing in the Muslim nation of Libya, where both government and rebels support the Islamic jihad against America and the West?

Would not a reasonable person be concerned about the attacks plotted and carried out by Muslims in the United States who claim to be inspired by the Koran and who regard themselves as holy warriors in the jihad declared by Osama bin Laden and other Muslim fanatics? These Muslim attacks include the successful massacre of unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood by Nidal Hassan, a self-declared Muslim warrior whose anti-infidel rantings were ignored by the military brass.

Read the rest of “A Rational Fear of Islamhere at NRO.

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