John Esposito is the director of Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), a professor of religion and international affairs, and one of the most prominent scholars of Islam and the Middle East in the nation. He has called Muslim Brotherhood Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who advocates jihad-martyrdom suicide bombings and has praised Hitler’s genocide of the Jews, a champion of a “reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights.” Esposito has called the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) “phenomenal organization” and has spokenat CAIR fundraisers in order, he explained, to “show solidarity not only with the Holy Land Fund [that is, the Holy Land Foundation], but also with CAIR.”
The Holy Land Foundation was shut down and prosecuted for funneling money to the jihad terror group Hamas, which once boasted on its website about its murders of civilians in pizza parlors and on buses; the Justice Department named CAIR an unindicted co-conspiratorin the case. Esposito himself refuses to condemn Hamas, as the Investigative Project notes: “In a 2000 interview in The United Association for Studies and Research’s (UASR) Middle East Affairs Journal, Esposito refused to condemn Hamas, which at the time was already designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department.”
Esposito has also co-edited a book, Islam and Secularism in the Middle East, with Azzam Tamimi. Palestinian political scientist Muhammad Muslih calls Tamimi “a Hamas member.” Tamimi has said: “I admire the Taliban; they are courageous,” and “I support Hamas.” When University of South Florida computer science professor Sami al-Arian was accused of involvement with the leadership of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for the murders of several civilians, he became a cause célèbre, with his defenders ascribing his prosecution to “Islamophobia.” Esposito rushed to his defense, avowing: “Sami Al-Arian’s a very good friend of mine.” In 2008, Esposito advocated for al-Arian’s release, saying:
Al-Arian later pled guilty to “conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a specially designated terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law.” Al-Arian also, according to Congressman Frank Wolf(R-VA), has “longstanding connections to associates of al Qaeda.” Wolf quotes a federal affidavit noting that “‘Sheik Rahman (the ‘Blind Sheik’) visited Al-Arian at his residence in Tampa and spoke at his mosque.’ Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in U.S. prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attack and additional terror plots.”
Also associated with the Blind Sheik is the man Esposito calls “my old friend Siraj": the popular Muslim speaker Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj was designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing for taking the Blind Sheik to speak at mosques in New York and New Jersey in the early 1990s. Wahhaj has warnedthat the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has also asserted that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”
This is the “expert” whom the Washington Post calls upon to clear up Tony Blair’s “misconceptions” about Islam.
“Tony Blair misreads Muslim terrorism,” by John Esposito in the Washington Post, June 5:
Facile, superficial or biased statements and disproportionate coverage create a bias that plays to militant Muslims [sic] desire for national and international attention, terrorizes citizens in the belief that this may influence their country’s foreign policies and encourages copycats. At the same time, they risk reinforcing far right anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim (Islamophobic) forces, further driving a wedge between non-Muslim and Muslim citizens and alienating the majority of loyal mainstream Muslim citizens.
Though well intentioned, it perpetuates his long held belief since the Bush-Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq that the primary driver, the root cause of terrorism, is religion and not political and social contexts and foreign policies. It is wrong headed and doomed to continue to be part of the problem not the solution.
A similar flawed narrative can be seen in statements by other political leaders and media commentators such as London mayor, Boris Johnson’s article“By standing united, we can isolate the virus of Islamism” in the Daily Telegraph. The monolithic use of the term Islamism fails to distinguish between mainstream and violent extremist Islamists. Each are individuals or organizations that appeal to the religion of Islam but extremists, like their Christian and Jewish counterparts, are more often driven by political, economic or social issues and grievances, such as military intervention, invasion and/or occupation of land by foreign forces. They misinterpret or twist the religious beliefs of the mainstream majority to legitimate their hate speech, use of violence and terrorist attacks. Major polls (Gallup, Pew, Zogby and others) have long documented that widespread anti-Americanism or anti-European Muslim attitudes are driven by foreign policies. But that there is a distinct difference between the mainstream majority, who remain non-violent and admire and desire (Western) economic and technological accomplishments as well as the rule of law and freedoms and a minority of extremists who resort to violence and terrorism.
Esposito concludes by parroting well-worn Islamic supremacist talking points: exploring Islam’s violent texts and teachings would be “painting with broad brushes about mainstream Islam” and exposing innocent Muslims to discrimination and danger. In reality, the truth is the truth. No innocent people should ever be victimized. Esposito is trying to blackmail the U.S. into refraining from speaking the truth because of the prospect (endlessly exaggerated by Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S.) that innocent Muslims may be victimized. In fact, we will all be victimized, and already have been, if we refrain from speaking the truth -- as with the massive intelligence failures regarding the Boston Marathon jihad bombers, failures that may have been avoided if the Obama Administration weren’t intent on obscuring the truth about jihad terror.
John Esposito is aiding and abetting ignorance and complacency about the jihad threat, and thereby helping enable more jihad attacks. I expect his Saudi paymasters are pleased.
