King Hearings Shine Light on Muslim Evasion of Responsibility

by Robert Spencer
http://www.humanevents.com
03/15/2011

New York state Republican representative Peter King (center, back) chairs congressional hearings on the radicalisation of US Muslims. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Despite an all-out propaganda offensive by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its useful idiots in the mainstream media, Rep. Peter King (R.-N.Y.) went ahead last week with his hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in the U.S. King had allowed himself to be cowed by his opponents, striking several useful witnesses he had originally announced he was going to call after complaints from CAIR and other Islamic supremacist pressure groups, but his hearings went wonderfully well anyway—if only in exposing the mendacity and absolute unwillingness of Muslims in America to confront Islamic jihad activity in their midst.

Just the fact of the hearings themselves had the Left and its Islamic supremacist allies in a tizzy, which in itself demonstrated that they had something to hide—and that they knew that we knew. So they went into full-bore fearmongering mode: Rep. Bennie Thompson (D.-Miss.) declared: “I cannot help but wonder how propaganda about this hearing’s focus on the American Muslim community will be used by those who seek to inspire a new generation of suicide bombers.” In other words, don’t fight back against the jihadists, for if you do, they will hit us again. Of course, if we don’t fight back against them, they will hit us again anyway, but at least our politically correct multiculturalist smugness will be intact.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D.-Minn.), whose pilgrimage to Mecca was paid for by the Muslim American Society, an organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, tried to steal the show by bursting into tears while reading an account of a Muslim who was killed on Sept. 11, 2002, and who had been, Ellison alleged, accused of jihad terror sympathies. But Ellison’s widely reported crocodile tears are in service of a deception. His claim that the Muslim 9/11 victim had been accused of terror links proved to be false. What’s more, the existence of Muslims who truly accept American constitutional freedoms does not mitigate or refute the existence of jihadists, jihad sympathizers, and Islamic supremacists among Muslims in the U.S., and vice versa. This would be an elementary point taken for granted by everyone were it not for the determined efforts of Ellison and his allies to obfuscate it.

Rep. Keith Ellison gets emotional during hearings. (The Washington Post)

Back in Ellison’s home state, Minnesota Public Radio ran a hand-wringing piece about local Muslims’ fear of a “backlash” in the wake of the King hearings. In a sane world, Minnesota Public Radio would be running material about how the Muslim community in Minneapolis and elsewhere was working hard to prove its loyalty to American constitutional values, and instituting programs to teach against the understanding of Islam manifested by Islamic jihadists. Instead, they’re the victims, as always. The media once again trotted out the tired line that Muslims are being persecuted even as the death toll from Islamic jihad attacks worldwide continues to mount.

Mainstream media journalists are drearily predictable in their readiness to retail this line. It is remarkable how it never seems to occur to any of them to ask even the most basic probing questions about what these poor victims actually intend to do on their side to try to prevent future jihad attacks, and thereby head off this frightening “backlash” that never actually appears.

Other Democrat lawmakers, meanwhile, charged that King’s hearings were too narrowly focused, and that he should investigate “radicalization” among the Ku Klux Klan and skinheads in the U.S, and not just among Muslims. According to the Associated Press, “to focus on just one group, Muslims, amounted to an abuse of power, discrimination, and propaganda for al-Qaeda, they said.”

Let’s see. Jihad terror mass murder in Fort Hood. Jihad mass murder plots thwarted in Portland, Baltimore, Lubbock, Tex., North Carolina, Times Square, on an airplane over Detroit, and more—and that’s just the last few months. How many mass murder plots have the Ku Klux Klan and skinheads cooked up in the same time span?

All the hysteria and denial from the Left and Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S. was telling: Clearly King has touched a nerve, and there is plenty to be found out about Islamic jihad sentiments and activity among Muslims in the U.S. Here’s hoping he presses on courageously, and finds it.


Mr. Spencer is director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad, Stealth Jihad and The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran (all from Regnery-a HUMAN EVENTS sister company).