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WASHINGTON –
U.S. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security
Committee, is convening hearings whose premise offends our nation’s
founding ideals and whose targets are law-abiding members of a
religious minority. King has decided to investigate
Islam.
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A Republican
from Long Island in his 10th term, King seems untroubled that the
freedoms of religion and association are guaranteed by the
Constitution. His public exercise in Islamophobia can do no good –
and much harm.
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The
legitimate-sounding goal of this exercise, King explained on CNN,
is to investigate “self-radicalization going on within the Muslim
community” and the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism. Who
doesn’t want to uncover al-Qaeda sleeper cells? Who doesn’t want to
do everything that is possible — and legal – to prevent terrorist
attacks?
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But King
further alleges that Muslim Americans have failed to demonstrate
“sufficient cooperation” with law enforcement in uncovering
potential terrorist plots. With this libel, King casts doubt on the
loyalties of millions of Americans solely because of their faith.
This is religious persecution — and it’s un-American and
wrong.
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King says he
only wants to root out potential terrorists and bears no animus
toward the vast majority of Muslim Americans. But he once
complained that “unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this
country,” and on another occasion offered the ludicrous opinion
that “80 to 85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by
Islamic fundamentalists.” His claim to be free of anti-Muslim bias
lacks credibility.
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The irony is
that it would be perfectly appropriate for King and his committee
to look into any and all potential sources of domestic terrorism,
emphasis on any and
all. Before the 9/11 attacks, people seem to forget, the
deadliest single act of terrorism on U.S. soil had been perpetrated
by a right-wing loser named Timothy McVeigh – who was not, as it
happened, a follower of Islam. For more than a century, the most
remorseless and violent terrorist organization in the nation was
the Ku Klux Klan. Watchdogs such as the Southern Poverty Law Center
would be happy to share with King voluminous information about
heavily armed militia groups out in the backwoods, training for
some imagined Armageddon.
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But the fact
is that the 9/11 atrocities were indeed committed by men who
espouse a version of Islam – one that the vast majority of the
world’s 1.2 billion Muslims reject as warped and blasphemous. It’s
also true that al-Qaeda and its affiliates continue to mount
attacks against the United States and the West, and that jihadist
ideology is a deadly weapon.
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Some
conservatives make a frank argument for ethnic and religious
profiling as an anti-terrorism tool. They scoff that failing to
single out Muslims for extra scrutiny is nothing but political
correctness.
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These
self-styled “realists” are stoking irrational fears while ignoring
rational ones. King offers no support for his insinuation that
Muslim Americans are giving aid and comfort to terrorists; to the
contrary, Muslim clerics and worshipers in this country have been
vocal in their rejection of jihadist rhetoric and violence. And
unless King believes Muslims are clairvoyant, why would he expect
them to be any better than Christians, Jews or anyone else in
identifying lone-wolf gunmen or bombers whose private torment
becomes obvious only in retrospect?
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Security
hearings that focus exclusively on Muslim Americans serve only to
amplify the rumblings of Islamophobia that seem to become louder
and crazier by the day.
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Bad enough
is the ridiculous controversy over the proposed Muslim community
center in Lower Manhattan that became known as the “Ground Zero
Mosque.” This episode taught Muslim Americans that even a
mainstream cleric, specifically bent on building an institution for
interfaith outreach and understanding, is not welcome to enjoy the
nation’s guarantee of religious freedom.
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Worse is all
the ugly noise – it doesn’t qualify as debate – about the imagined
encroachment of Islamic sharia law. As a threat to the American way
of life, the chance that our justice system would be taken over by
“creeping” sharia is less likely than the emergence of Godzilla
from New York Harbor. Yet state legislatures are taking up actual
legislation to guard against this imaginary Islamic
threat.
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The
narrative that al-Qaeda uses to recruit suicide bombers is that the
United States and the West are not fighting terrorism but trying to
destroy Islam. Peter King, with his little hearings, is about to
make it harder to refute the jihadists’ big lie.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.
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