After 9/11, elected officials told us that Islam had nothing to do with terrorism. And that accusing Muslims of supporting Islamic terrorism was a dangerous bigotry they dubbed “Islamophobia.”
In the decades since, the same speech has been delivered after every Islamic terror attack.
Now, as Muslims and leftists riot in support of Hamas, after Islamic groups and public figures from campus groups to the leader of the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) celebrated the Oct 7 atrocities, we are not allowed to suggest they support terrorism.
Even as Dearborn, Michigan became the hub of a movement to save Hamas by pressuring Biden, led by figures who had praised Hamas, an op-ed by a MEMRI counterterrorism researcher in the Wall Street Journal that warned of the degree of support for terrorism in the Muslim area was denounced by everyone from Biden on down for its “Islamophobia.”
Muslims in America, we’re told, don’t support Hamas, they just oppose Israel. Is that true?
While there were polls which showed that the vast majority of Muslims in Israel (the so-called ‘Palestinians’) support Hamas, there hasn’t been a comprehensive poll of Muslims in America.
However a recent Pew survey on the war showed that half of Muslims in America (49%) believe Hamas has “valid” reasons for attacking Israel, while the majority (54%) also reject the idea that Israel has the right to defend itself against the Islamic terrorist organization
Unlike the vast majority of Americans from all ages and backgrounds, Muslims are the only group where less than half agree that the Oct 7 murders, rapes and kidnappings were wrong.
1 in 5 Muslims in America (21%) were willing to admit they supported the Oct 7 massacres. Nearly 1 in 3 claimed to be unsure whether burning Jewish families alive in their homes was wrong.
Only 5% of Muslims in America believe that Israel’s military campaign on Hamas is acceptable while 68% of Muslims believe that Israel’s attacks on the Islamic terrorists are not acceptable.
67% of Muslims in America have an unfavorable view of the “Israeli people” (not the Israeli government which an overwhelming 86% of them oppose.)
While only 8% of Americans have a favorable view of Hamas, 1 in 3 (37%) Muslims in America are willing to admit to a favorable view of a sanctioned terrorist organization. (There are multiple reasons why some Muslims might oppose Hamas while still hating Israel, including support for the Palestinian Authority, political opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood or resentment over Hamas siding with the Sunni rebels in Syria.)
60% of Muslims in the U.S. resent that America is “favoring” Israel.
These numbers are troubling because they pose a threat not only to Israel, but to America.
Support for Islamic terrorism in one part of the world can often translate to support for terrorism elsewhere. Including in America. Hamas is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood which has built an extensive infrastructure in America. When the Brotherhood took power in Egypt, before being removed in a popular uprising with military backing, many Muslims here rallied to support it.
Muslim Brotherhood terrorist groups operate not only in Israel or the Middle East, but around the world. Al Qaeda was formed as part of a fusion with a Muslim Brotherhood splinter group. Osama bin Laden was one of a number of Al Qaeda leaders who had been in the Brotherhood.
And the Muslim Brotherhood is on every campus in America through its student groups, it has built up organizations that control mosques and represent Muslims on Capitol Hill. Some of those organizations also did everything possible to undermine America’s war on Al Qaeda.
Now some of them are cheering on the Houthi Jihadists as they battle the U.S. Navy to sink as many ships in the Red Sea as they can. Will they also cheer on attacks against America?
The Pew numbers show quite clearly that a surprising number of Muslims are willing to express support for Islamic terrorism. How many share their views but are more circumspect about telling them to a stranger on the phone? That is something we may only find out far too late.
While 1 in 3 Muslims will admit to supporting Hamas, 1 in 2 claim that Hamas has valid reasons for attacking Israel. And hardly any believe that the victims of Islamic terrorism have the right to fight back. That is the final number that truly matters. Some Muslims will claim to reject Islamic terror, but very few are willing to actually support non-Muslims who fight back against terrorism.
While the Pew poll offers plenty of bad news about Democrats and their support for terror, this is in part driven by the growing Islamic role in the party, the media and public life. That is the phenomenon reflected in the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s ‘Election Jihad’ report which showed that Islamic activists were gaining statewide offices around the country and using their positions to defend Islamic terrorists while opposing efforts to put a stop to their violence.
Muslims in America don’t represent a range of diversity, they are clear outliers when it comes to supporting Islamic terrorism even among those groups most prone to supporting terrorists.
Over 3 times as many Muslims, as Democrats, support the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7. Twice as many Muslims as black protestants, the other group least friendly to Jews, believe Hamas has valid reasons for fighting Israel. Over twice as many Muslims, as 18-24 year olds, the most pro-Hamas age demographic, support Hamas.
These views do not represent an American range, but a dangerous un-American one.
The support for Hamas and the opposition to Israel among Muslims in America is not a reflection of American politics, but of Islamic ones. This is also true of the anti-Israel campaign. The majority of Muslims don’t just oppose Israel, but the “Israeli people”. This is not a disagreement with a particular government, but a tribal hatred of an entire people.
And that is the same genocidal hatred that Hamas and other terrorist groups have mobilized.
American Jews are shocked at the level and depth of support for the murder of Jews, but over the past decades, they (like most Americans) failed to view immigration as an urgent threat. Now that there are multiple crises, from terrorist mobs in the streets to a mass invasion at the border, some people are waking up. And that wake up call needs to turn into action.
Israel has its war at its own borders and we have ours. America is a generation away from its own Oct 7. As in Europe, a new terrorist threat is rising in our own country, not from abroad, but from a generation of Muslims and converts who were born in this country.
The Pew poll shows once more how deep the support for Islamic terrorists is not just in abstractions like the “media” or the “college campus”, but among Islamic immigrants.
If Americans and, especially, Jews, do not come to terms with that, what follows will be worse.
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