Allegations that President Obama’s administration is suppressing the religious motives of terrorists sparked a debate between Muslims over the nature of terrorism and the utility of discussing “political Islam” in public settings.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, convened a Judiciary subcommittee hearing to discuss the “consequences of agency efforts to deemphasize Radical Islam in combating terrorism,” which, by a tragic coincidence, took place as reports unfolded of an Islamic State-linked bombing at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey that killed more than 30 people.
The hearing featured aggressive accusations that President Obama’s administration has suppressed information that could have helped identify prospective terrorists due to “wilful blindness” about the attackers’ religious motives. But the lawmakers seemed more interested in the overt disagreement between two Muslim activists who have opposing views about the relationship between theology and terrorism.
“If ISIS is watching this hearing now, half of these panelists have just given them so much ammunition to go out and create recruiting videos to say, ‘look, this is what they U.S. Senate is doing,’” Muslim Advocates executive director Farhana Khera testified. “They’re actually giving a mouthpiece to this kind of, frankly, garbage.”
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, was one of the co-panelists she criticized. Jasser linked Islamic State beliefs to the regnant religious teachings of Saudi Arabia and Iran and he argued that failure to recognize the threat of “political Islam” has sabotaged U.S. counterterrorism efforts and driven a wedge between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans.
“Denial actually fuels bigotry,” Jasser testified. “It actually polarizes our community in this country into two sides: one that says there is no problem, almost like the alcoholic that doesn’t want to deal with it, and the other that says that every Muslim is a possible terrorist.”
Khera dismissed that issue as the wrong focus for law enforcement and national security officials. “I think he’s trying to have a theological debate, and there may very well need to be a theological debate, whether in the United States or in other Muslim countries,” she said. “I never once have heard a senior law enforcement official say that the problem is Islam, that the problem is radical Islam.”
At another point in the hearing, she suggested that Islamic State-inspired terrorists have more in common with Charleston shooter Dylann Roof than their co-religionists. “The common thread that you see is vulnerable individuals who are seeking a sense of purpose,” she said. “There are some people who, where there is ideology that is a part, but ideology is not the center or even part of the center of causation that causes people to engage in violence.”
Throughout the hearing, Democrats referred critically to presumptive GOP Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration and Cruz’s suggestion that law enforcement “patrol” Muslim communities. So Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked them how law enforcement should respond when confronted with a mosque that has produced two terrorists, including the Orlando shooter.
Jasser suggested that U.S. government officials should broaden their definition of “radical” Islam to include non-violent teachers of homophobia, anti-Semitism, and the like.
“When you define radical as those who are anti-semitic, who are homophobic, who perpetrate conspiracy theories about American military and American policies, all of these are the under belly of ideas [that motivate terrorism],” he said.
He also argued that there is a continuum between acts of terrorism and the beliefs of some non-violent Muslims, which explains why another mosque attendant warned the FBI that the Orlando shooter was dangerous.
“Our community needs a twelve-step program,” Jasser said. “The reason they can be at the same mosque is that there is such a complete denial between the connection of non-violent Islamism to violent Islamism that they’re going to be at the same mosque and not realize it, non-violent and the violent.”
Farha, when pressed by Graham about surveillance of such mosques, acknowledged the need for police to investigate in certain cases. “If there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, law enforcement needs to go there and they need to conduct a full investigation,” she said.