The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is quick to speak out on Islamophobia and not so quick to do so on Islamofascism. In fact, it only speaks out on the latter to object to the use of the term, under any circumstances. In pursuit of its agenda of maximizing the significance of anti-Muslim bigotry and minimizing the significance of Islamic extremism, CAIR labors with utmost diligence to cast “jihad” in a positive light.
A CAIR media guidbook insists “jihad” gets a bad rap as signifying holy war. Actually, according to CAIR, jihad is a peaceful concept entailing a personal spiritual quest to better oneself according to the tenets of the Islamic faith. In many cases, this is surely true. The problem is the cases where it is not true. And these cases — involving as they do zealots who go on the holy warpath — tend to thrust themselves on the public’s attention at the insistence of defiantly unpeaceful practitioners.
Al Qaida in Yemen recently offered a $160,000 reward for the killing of the U.S. ambassador there and $23,000-a-head rewards for the killing U.S. soldiers. The Al Qaida branch says — and is emphatic on the point — that the rewards are intended to “inspire and encourage our Muslim nations for jihad.” Apparently Al Qaida in Yemen didn’t get the memo on the true peaceful meaning of jihad.