THE WISDOM FUND: News & Views
October 9, 2014
Truthdig.com

The Rise of the New, Liberal Islamophobia

by Sonali Kolhatkar

The recent television kerfuffle involving "Real Time" host Bill Maher and guest Sam Harris over whether Muslims are bad people because their religion is, in the words of Harris, "the mother lode of bad ideas," is symbolic of the new American Islamophobia.

Muslim-bashing has become a popular sport several times over the last decade and a half, most notably in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; after the election of Barack Obama; over the proposal for the so-called Ground Zero mosque; and now with the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But this time, it's not just members of the extreme right, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann and presidential wannabe Herman Cain, equating Islam with terrorism. . . .

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[To become a Muslim, one need only profess, "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God."--"The Truth About Islam" -- Prophet Muhammad

"First they came ..." -- Martin Niemoller (1892--1984)

"War Is A Racket" -- General Smedley Darlington Butler, 1933

"Islamic Values: Sayings of The Prophet Muhammad" -- Sir Abdullah Suhrawardy, January 1941

Leon T. Hadar, "The "Green Peril": Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat," Cato Institute, August 27, 1992

Enver Masud, "A Clash Between Justice and Greed, Not Islam and the West," The Wisdom Fund, September 2, 2002


["This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."--Wesley Clark, "Seven Countries in Five Years," Democracy Now, March 2, 2007]

When the Moors (Muslims) Ruled Europe, October 17, 2009

Enver Masud, "Fear Paralyzes U.S. Muslim 'Leaders'," The Wisdom Fund, August 3, 2010

Nicole Naurath, "Most Muslim Americans See No Justification for Violence: Muslims Americans more likely than other faith groups to reject attacks on civilians,"gallup.com, August 2, 2011

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Webster Tarpley, "CIA Mormon Mafia," Guns and Butter, October 17 2012

Mehdi Hasan, "Islam Is A Peaceful Religion," Oxford Union, July 3, 2013

Alex, "Why Should White People Care What Happens to Black or Brown People?," WashingtonsBlog, August 15, 2014

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Jack Murphy, "General Thomas McInerney and the Military-Industrial Complex," sofrep.com, October 6, 2014

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Tariq Ramadan, "ISIL is not Islamic," youtube.com, October 11, 2014

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[Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-), Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria.--Glenn Greenwald, "How many Muslim countries has the U.S. bombed or occupied since 1980?," firstlook.org, November 6, 2014]

CHART: "The Islamophobia Network," Center for American Progress, February 2015

VIDEO: Mehdi Hasan, "Islamophobia: The Bridge Initiative," Georgetown University, April 30, 2015

[When Republican Ben Carson declared Muslims unfit to be president, he crossed a line that historians say no major White House hopeful has breached since the 1940s - openly expressing prejudice.--Michael Finnegan, "Ben Carson's open bias against Muslims a sign of coarse times," rawstory.com, September 30, 2015]

[Taqiyya (together with a related concept, kitman) refers to the "covering up" or hiding of one's faith in the face of life-endangering oppression.--Brian A. Catlos, "What paranoid anti-Muslim bigots like Ben Carson don't understand about 'taqiyya'," rawstory.com, October 26, 2015]

Mona Chalabi, "How anti-Muslim are Americans? Data points to extent of Islamophobia," theguardian.com, December 8, 2015

"False Flag Islamophobia Conference," December 12, 2015

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David Petraeus, "Anti-Muslim bigotry aids Islamist terrorists," washingtonpost.com, May 13, 2016

Ryan Rifai, "Report: Islamophobia is a multimillion-dollar industry," aljazeera.com, June 24, 2016

Belen Fernandez, "Lindsay Lohan: America's next jihadist," middleeasteye.net, January 19, 2017

Sofia Ahmed, "Europe has started to enshrine Islamophobia into law - history tells us this can't end well," independent.co.uk, March 14, 2017

Khaled A Beydoun, "Being a Muslim under Trump is risky. That's why many are hiding their identity," independent.co.uk, March 30, 2017

[A survey of law enforcement ranked sovereign citizens, not Islamic terrorists, as the most pressing terrorist threat--Oliver Conroy, "They hate the US government, and they're multiplying: the terrifying rise of 'sovereign citizens'," theguardian.com, May 15, 2017

Trevor Aaronson, "Recordings Capture Brutal FBI Tactics to Recruit a Potential Informant," theintercept.com, October 10, 2017

Islamophobia Industry Nathan Lean, " The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Hatred of Muslims," Pluto Press; 2nd ed (November 15, 2017)

[He convincingly argues that throughout the existence of the United States, there has always been a legal framework in place that defines Islam and Muslim identity as incompatible with Americanness.--Mariam Elba, "How Islamophobia Was Ingrained in America's Legal System Long Before the War on Terror," theintercept.com, May 6, 2018]

Islamophobia Inc, Al Jazeera Investigations, May 14, 2018

Arnold Isaacs, "Promoting Islamophobia in America," tomdispatch.com, June 10, 2018

Asad AbuKhalil, "The Legacy and Fallacies of Bernard Lewis," consortiumnews.com, June 29, 2018

[Research by the University of Alabama shows attacks by Muslims receive an average of 105 headlines, others just 15--Mona Chalabi, "Terror attacks by Muslims receive 357% more press attention, study finds," theguardian.com, July 20, 2018]

Arnold R. Isaacs, "American Islamophobia's Fake Facts," tomdispatch.com, July 31, 2018

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