Assessing the Fear Factor
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, leader of the crusade to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, trashed his “moderation” pose when he disregarded millions of concerned Americans and declared that moving the proposed facility could cause a violent backlash from Muslim extremists and endanger national security.
Rauf told CNN, “The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack….Anger will explode in the Muslim world.” The fury, he said, could be worse than the violence that followed the publication of Danish cartoons of Muhammad in 2005.
No moderation here. Islamist muscle-tactics are now in full swing, threatening violence and retaliation and creating an air of intimidation that offers surrender as the only alternative to placing innocent lives in jeopardy.
And why not use fear as a weapon of choice? The publication of the cartoons of Muhammad by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark was used by radical Muslim clerics to foment extreme violence. Muslims rioted, burned embassies, and boycotted Danish goods. Many people died because Muslims claimed they had a right to commit murder and mayhem because their religious sensibilities were offended.
The editor of the Danish newspaper explained he commissioned the cartoons to respond to the self-censorship being imposed in Europe when dealing with issues related to Islam. In other words, he objected to the press being intimidated into silence. Islamic extremists justify their long list of atrocities as Sharia-compliant and therefore acceptable for striking fear in the hearts of “infidels.”
Extremist Muslim aspirations were made clear when Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour in October, “We believe that one day the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.” Those who dismiss his statement as the ranting of the radical fringe are not listening. His words echoed a pledge made by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who vowed the Palestinian flag would eventually fly over the churches of Jerusalem.
These are not idle threats. They are the long-term goals of Islamists who want a global caliphate that will destroy Israel and reduce Western Christianity to humiliating subservience.
It is a huge mistake to ignore or underestimate these militant Islamists whose declarations of intent grow ever bolder on the streets of our cities and in liberal media outlets providing open microphones for their diatribes. Consider the current situation in Europe. In 2004 historian Bernard Lewis told the German newspaper Die Welt, “Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.” Competent observers repeat his predication today.
In Sweden, for example, police in Malmo, the country’s third largest city, publicly admit they can no longer control the violent Muslim gangs. Medical personnel refuse to enter certain areas without a police escort.
Concessions are being made based on fear. In the end, they will hasten Bernard Lewis’s prediction. Clearly, the Islamic objective is to establish a state within a state, bridgeheads operating under Islamic Sharia law, from which to achieve total conquest. As events unfold on the continent, we see the strategy is working.
It is critical to understand Muslim intransigence—particularly on matters some Christians, politicians, and social-betterment operatives cave in on in the name of tolerance. Two important cases are:
- Muslim inflexibility on the Cordoba Islamic center near Ground Zero. It telegraphs a message that American sensitivities are inconsequential. What’s important to Imam Rauf and his supporters is that Islam has its way. For all the talk about the center being for all faiths, it will, if built, stand as a monument to Muslim triumph.
- Palestinian and Arab intractable insistence that Israel not be recognized as a Jewish state. To concede here would be a fatal mistake. Without a clear Jewish identity, infiltrated by masses of Palestinian immigrants, the nation would eventually morph into a Palestinian entity allowing only a minority Jewish population. Goodbye Israel.
When concessions are the fruit of fear, the bullies always win.
