Danny Burmawi, founder and CEO of the Ideological Defense Institute (IDI), spoke to a March 23 Middle East Forum podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
The first, “blame the Jews,” dominates much of media, academia and segments of the political sphere. This view “paints Israel as the aggressor and the Arabs/Muslims as perpetual victims.”
There are two dominant views of the Middle East. The prevailing one will determine “whether Western civilization survives or gets eroded from within.” The first, “blame the Jews,” dominates much of media, academia and segments of the political sphere. This view “paints Israel as the aggressor and the Arabs/Muslims as perpetual victims.” When Israel defends itself against jihad, it is accused of being the aggressor. The narratives that Israel’s presence destabilizes the region and that, prior to the re-establishment of the Jewish state, Jews and Christians lived in harmony under the umbrella of Islam, are revisionist distortions of history. “That is nonsense.” With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Jews in Israel and Christians in Lebanon wanted sovereignty. Although the Lebanese Christians caved to Islamic supremacy, the Israelis fight Islamic jihad to this day.
The second narrative, grounded in “theology, history, and reality,” recognizes the two projects that “ultimately aim to establish Allah’s rule over the entire earth”—the Sunni Caliphate [Muslim rule reigns] and the Shi’a Wilaya [legitimate authority]. Islam’s conflict with Israel over the past 80 years is only one aspect of Islamic jihadi military warfare against the Christian West that supremacist Islam waged during its spread of “dominance for 14 centuries.”
Despite historical evidence, the West has rebranded “jihad” as a softer and sanitized version of its historical definition. The three reasons for this revisionism rest on geopolitics, ideological agendas, and the introduction of “new vocabulary” to sanitize jihad.
Geopolitically, the power conflict between the U.S. and the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s weaponized the “mujahideen,” Islamic fighters who served as the West’s force in countering the spread of communism. To sell the idea to the public, American policymakers “divorced jihad from its theological roots in supremacy and violence.”
As to ideological agendas, Western academia in the mid-twentieth century reframed jihad as compatible with Western values by packaging it as multiculturalism and post-colonialism. To avoid backlash, academia ignored Islam’s supremacist doctrines and historical conquests. Thus, universities and think tanks became “echo chambers” that promoted progressive narratives.
Fearing domestic backlash post-9/11, universities and political leaders advanced their ideological goal of rebranding jihad by introducing new vocabulary. Anticipating unrest in Muslim communities, government leaders pressed academics to avoid theology and “blame grievances instead of jihad.” Middle East studies departments in universities institutionalized willful blindness to inconvenient historical truths. The distortions permeated societal institutions in education, the media, and even counterterrorism.
Revisionists claim that Muhammad’s jihadi battles were waged reluctantly and primarily defensively, but “history says otherwise.”
The claim that jihad is colonial misrepresentation distorts the truth. This distortion, plus the assertions that the greater jihad “is spiritual,” or “anti-imperial resistance against oppression,” are all revisionist apologetics propagated to cloak the violent history of Islamic jihad. Academia rejected the notions that jihadi violence is “explicit in the [Islamic] text,” and is evidenced by centuries of Islamic conquest, or that vanquished Christians in the Middle East and North Africa were reduced to second-class status as “dhimmis” under Islamic law. Revisionist academics exploited “post-colonial guilt” as a smokescreen. Arabist academics like Edward Said promoted his revisionist theory of “Orientalism” to excuse jihad and advanced the myth that violence was a Western invention “to justify imperialism.”
Revisionists claim that Muhammad’s jihadi battles were waged reluctantly and primarily defensively, but “history says otherwise.” As Muhammad conquered Syria, Egypt, and Spain, committing ambushes and beheadings along the way, such offensive wars were waged to consolidate power. “It was driven by verses in the Quran, like ‘fighting is prescribed for you.’”
As for the greater jihad being “spiritual,” Islamic theologian al-Bukhari mentions jihad 99 times as “warfare.” Apologists cling to the one weak hadith [saying] claiming that jihad is spiritual as “the primary definition of jihad.” Another claim that jihad is resistance against oppression conflates revisionist vocabulary with civil rights to dupe politically progressive and misinformed Westerners.
“By obscuring jihad’s roots, the West has emboldened the jihadists. Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Jabhat al-Nasra—they have crippled counter-terrorism by focusing on grievances and poverty. They completely erased the victims of Islamic jihad all through 14 centuries. So, they have weakened the resolve. ‘Islamophobia’ was introduced to be an accusation for anyone who dares to criticize that theology, the canonical books. So, this rebranding made the West vulnerable.”
Protecting the West against self-inflicted vulnerabilities requires facing the threat head-on by defining jihad for what it is. “The rebranding of Islamic jihad is happening in the West, it’s real, and the goal behind it is to make the West weak.” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was fed a steady diet of anti-Western invective by his father, a Columbia professor who authored a book defending suicide bombing as “legitimate political action.” The elder Mamdani’s recent post justifying the 9/11 attacks garnered millions of views.
Protecting the West against self-inflicted vulnerabilities requires facing the threat head-on by defining jihad for what it is.
Mayor Mamdani is currently engaged in hiring staff who will shape how Muslims are “framed” by constructing narratives around Muslim identity. “In every speech, he’s trying to promote or push these anti-West narratives.” It is overwhelming for the average uninformed person in denial about jihad to believe that “the religion of two billion people is the reason behind all of this violence.”
Following the 9/11 attacks, the view that Islam was directly connected to the historical meaning of an Islamic jihad was widespread. Yet, instead of directly challenging Islam’s assault on the West, President George W. Bush claimed a speech that “Islam is the religion of peace.” Following his rhetorical retreat, the accusations against Islam were withdrawn. That opened the door for apologetics and evasion that eased Islam’s expansion in the West. Immigration of Muslims rose after 9/11 in the U.S. and across the West as a way of compensating for the temerity—and fear—of accusing Islam of waging military jihad in New York.
It is impossible to underestimate the effect of indoctrination that has corroded America’s higher education system over the past five decades. A particular dysfunction in countries largely at peace whose citizens live privileged lives is the development of a cultural vacuum characterized by an absence of meaning. An education system promoting contempt for America as an imperialist state is fertile soil in which “meaning was assigned to those who are underdogs, the oppressed, the weak.” Even though Islam is not a race, Hamas and Islam became racial identities championed on America’s campuses.
Displays of Islamic supremacism are seen in the streets of Europe, and even in the U.S., when Muslims by the hundreds and thousands indulge in public prayer on city streets en masse instead of confining their prayer to mosques. As part of an aggressive dynamic, “public prayer is pledging allegiance to Allah behind the enemy lines.” Although the majority of Muslims may want to be in the West for a better future, “the non-Islamic world is the enemy of Allah,” according to the Quran. This enmity prompts susceptible Muslims to become hostile toward non-Muslims. Public prayer is a way of projecting power, dominance, and intimidation.
Western politicians who accuse those warning about Islam in the West of being “Islamophobes” desire to remain in denial that Islam “is not only a religion, but Islam is a political ideology that has a religion.” To do otherwise would cost them support from a significant voting bloc. This dynamic occurs in France and the U.K., where politicians motivated by self-interest repeatedly extend accommodations to Muslims, oftentimes at the expense of their native non-Muslim citizens.
The city of Paterson, New Jersey, or areas in Texas or Florida could be at risk for Islamization, “but it would never be a complete takeover.”
There is a sign of hope in the U.S. because America is a constitutional republic with “red lines” in which the majority is unable to “change the foundations of the country or the constitution.” In Europe, the adage that “demography is destiny” plays out in real time. The future may be “Balkanization,” where Muslim enclaves that push for more and more accommodations will push too far and face rejection. At that point, “weaponized victimization narratives” could well lead to armed confrontations that culminate in civil war as a “violent autocorrection.”
In contrast with Europe, it is doubtful Islam will overtake America because of its Second Amendment, which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Complete Islamization may encroach on neighborhoods, towns, or even cities like Dearborn, Michigan, “but we also have people who are ready to die for their country.” The city of Paterson, New Jersey, or areas in Texas or Florida could be at risk for Islamization, “but it would never be a complete takeover.”
