Commentary
This week, three individuals were arrested for terrorist plots right here in the good ol' US of A (Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh were arrested in Seattle; Yonathan Melaku was apprehended in Arlington National Cemetery).
During the same week, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Berkeley's Center for Race and Gender have released a report entitled "Same Hate, New Target: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States".
Besides being unindicted co-conspirators in the case against the terrorist organization Hamas, CAIR is now in the analysis biz.
For some odd reason, I had the funny feeling that this lil' report just might be less than objective and credible.
It didn't take long for my suspicions to be confirmed.
As examples of those who "deserve recognition for their outstanding contributions to pushing back against Islamophobic trends" includes the likes of über-liberals Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Stephen Colbert, Media Matters, and Rachel Maddow.
Of course, the Darth Vaders of this little slice of this multi-cultural wet dream are the well known meanies Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), Jihad Watch, Brigitte Gabriel, Newt Gingrich, the four members of Congress who called for an investigation of Muslim Capitol Hill interns; Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and other violent extremists.
In Their Own Words...
The report itself defines Islamophobia as a close-minded prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims.
That certainly sounds reasonable to me. But a wee bit further, the devil is in the details (pun intended).
In the section entitled "America is not an Islamophobic nation, but it has Islamophobic elements", we're given the example of how horrible Many American's are due to;
The public’s favorable rating of Islam sank from 40 percent in November 2001 to 30 percent in August 2010 according to the Pew Research Center.
To wit, I say, so what?
Just because individuals don't happen to look favorably upon another certain group, that doesn't necessarily denote "a close-minded prejudice against or hatred" thereof.
You know what that does denote? That they simply don't look favorably on them... that's all.
In another example of homegrown Islamophobia, we're informed that;
In late November 2010, the Public Research Institute found that 45 percent of Americans agree that Islam is at odds with American values.
I re-iterate - so what?
If almost half of those polled question the compatibility of both Islam and Muslims to American values, is that Islamophobia?
Not according to CAIR's own report.
In the "Questioning Islam or Muslims is not Islamophobia" section, they state;
It is not appropriate to label all, or even the majority of those, who question Islam and Muslims as Islamophobes.
Who defines Islamophobia?
Golly gee, it sure is a good thing we have the folks from CAIR to keep us lowly mouth-breathers aware of the truth (as defined by the good folks at CAIR);
The Future of the Islamophobia ReportThis report establishes a baseline for analyzing Islamophobia in the United States.
Aren't we the lucky ones?
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