After the deadly attacks in Brussels, The New York Times is bringing “Islamophobia” home to describe how this will help the Democrats with Muslim voter-registration drives. A story by reporter Alan Rappeport on Friday ended with this provocative little quote from Muslim activist Reema Ahmad: “If you’re not at the dinner table, you’re on the menu.”
Republicans eat Muslims? The headline in the Times was “Feeling G.O.P. Peril, Muslims Try to Get Out Vote.”
Rappeport began:
American Muslims are watching in growing horror as Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz battle for the Republican presidential nomination, outdoing each other with provocative proposals that have included Muslim registries, immigration bans and fleets of police patrolling their neighborhoods.
With round tables, summit meetings and news releases falling on deaf ears, national advocacy groups are planning to fend off policies they consider hostile to Muslims with a more proactive strategy: driving up the Muslim vote.
Organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, the Islamic Circle of North America and the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations are encouraging mosques to turn themselves into voter registration centers before the November election so that Muslims can make their voices heard at the polls. Registration drives are expected to ramp up significantly in June, during Ramadan, when attendance at Islamic centers peaks.
''The fear and apprehension in the American Muslim community has never been at this level,'' said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR. ''The anti-Islamic tidal wave is spurring civic participation.''
How quickly the New York Times forgets the “fear” of Muslims after the original 9/11! And then the story doubled down:
''The best answer to this anti-Muslim rhetoric is engagement in the political process,'' said Naeem Baig, the president of the Islamic Circle of North America. ''It is a matter of survival for the American Muslim community.''
Like many Muslims, Mr. Baig said that the vitriol directed at Americans who practice Islam is the worst that he can remember. Violence against Muslims and attacks on mosques increased last year, and Muslim parents say their children are being bullied at school. Even the voter registration push has drawn criticism in some circles, with websites such as Creeping Sharia lamenting greater Muslim engagement in American politics and suggesting that ''the problem with CAIR's initiative is that no one who follows the Quran can honestly claim to follow the Constitution.''
That’s pretty much the best inclusion of an “Islamophobic” viewpoint in this shamelessly CAIR-promoting story.
USA Today also promoted the CAIR agenda in a story headlined "'Islamophobia': U.S. cities face anti-Muslim backlash". Mike James and Linda Dono reported:
While brutal attacks on Muslims in the United States haven't been reported to the Council on American-Islamic Relations since the Brussels attack, bullying and hate speech are growing, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based civil-liberties group.
"For girls, it's pulling on the hijab and calling them terrorists, and for boys it's saying that they have a bomb in their backpack and calling them terrorists," Hooper said. Some politicians make the problems worse. "They really have mainstreamed Islamophobia."
Children hear the hate speech on TV and hear their parents agreeing with it, he said. Increasingly, they're taking the language to school.
Then CAIR’s Hassan Shibly took the cake:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations' Florida chapter has seen a fivefold increase in reports of hate incidents during 2015 compared with 2014, 26 vs. five, said Hassan Shibly, the chapter’s chief executive director. A grand majority occurred in the final two months of the year, after the Paris terrorist attacks.
“Unlike what happens after the mass shootings committed by white supremacists that happen almost daily in America, whenever an act of terrorism involves those who identify themselves as Muslims, politicians respond by calling for the curtailment or the rights of American Muslims,” he said. “Our enemies can never destroy us. We can only destroy ourselves if we allow fear and hate to turn us against each other.”
It’s obvious USA Today doesn’t fact-check their Muslim advocates. Daily mass shootings by white supremacists in America? The liberal New America Foundation claims “right-wing terrorism” like white supremacists have killed 48 Americans since 9/11, less than jihadists, they claimed.
