The Islamaphobia Card

Well, who could have seen this coming:

A leader of a planned Muslim community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero compared opposition to the project to the persecution of Jews, in comments that could add to the controversy over the center's proposed site.

We are deeply concerned, because this is like a metastasized antisemitism," said Daisy Khan, who is spearheading the project with her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. "It's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims."

Ms. Khan, appearing on ABC News's "This Week" on Sunday, vowed to push ahead with plans to build a 15-story complex two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan, saying there was "too much at stake." . . .

The Islamaphobia card. You knew the Cordoba Project people would play it. But it is now the entire left in America throwing it with wild abandon. Obama played it implicitly during his speech at the White House Ramadan dinner. Others have been far less circumspect.



(H/T Seraphic Secret)

For but one other example, over the weekend, the New York Times drama queen, Frank Rich, didn't merely play the Islamaphobia card, but went further to say that those who oppose the Ground Zero "victory" mosque are betraying the war effort. The shameless hypocrisy of Rich, who spent 2004 to 2008 doing all in his power to undermine the war in Iraq, is stomach churning.

Demonizing opposition to the mosque is fraught with problems. It will of course provide the fodder for Islamists to claim that America is at war with Islam. All Islamists have to do is quote from Frank Rich or MSNBC or Obama. Two, because our government cravenly and wrongly treats Islam as a monolithic entity and the radical elements as non-Islamic, this really will cause an indiscriminate backlash against all of Islam in the U.S. And because of both of the above, it will seriously hurt the work of Muslim refromers and all Muslims who do not want to live under Sharia law. In the words fo Zhudi Jasser, refering to the remarks of President Obama, "[a]s a Muslim desperate to reform his faith, your remarks take us backwards from the day that my faith will come into modernity."

The one good thing that could possibly come out of this is a national education of sorts on the reality of Islam in the world today. Unfortunately, while the left is busy demonizing the opposition to the mosque, the talking heads on the right seem themselves clueless about the reality of the splits and faultlines in Islam, as well as the goals and strategies of those pushing Islamic supremacy. Given the existential nature of this conflict, it is depressing beyond words.