Now we know why Ahmad Khan Rahami had packed on a few pounds: it wasn’t the fried chicken he was peddling pre-jihad, it was “Islamophobia.”

Goleen Samari is a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Texas at Austin, and one wonders if they accept this level of “scholarship” from her. Here the Dallas Morning News gives her space to claim, without a shred of evidence, that “Islamophobia” — which Samari represents as irrational hatred of and discrimination against Muslims — leads to “paranoia, psychological distress and reduced happiness as well as high cholesterol, obesity and other health problems,” including depression and even cancer.

Well, she is right about the paranoia.

“Americans,” she claims, “are exposed to political campaigns, news coverage and movies that portray Muslims as outsiders and villains. One study found that the coverage of Islam and Muslims in The New York Times was more negative than the coverage of cancer, alcohol and cocaine. Structural forms of discrimination, forms such as media coverage or political campaigns that call for a ban on Muslims, help normalize discriminatory attitudes and create the institutional system of discrimination.”

Goleen Samari, like all “Islamophobia” victimhood-mongers, presents this narrative of victimization of Muslims, as dubious as it is, as the result of bigotry and, of course, racism. She never entertains, even long enough to dismiss, the truth: any suspicion that Americans may have of Islam or Muslims stems not from “political campaigns, news coverage and movies,” but from acts of jihad terror. Ahmad Khan Rahami, with his bombs in New York and New Jersey, is a much more effective purveyor of “Islamophobia” than I could ever be, even if I were the hate-filled gargoyle of the “Islamophobia” victimhood industry’s fantasy.

“Another study finds that a lack of social support leads to depression for Arab Muslim immigrant women. Islamophobia also prevents Muslim Americans from seeking health care, resulting in more late-stage cancer diagnoses.” Are they denied care by cackling, “Islamophobic” physicians with Trump bumper stickers? It’s much more likely that if they’re depressed or afraid to go to the doctor, it’s because they’re brutalized at home and their husband doesn’t want them seen undressed by some Infidel male.

But no, it’s all about “Islamophobia.” “Islamophobia” — which in reality is wildly exaggerated, as anti-Semitic hate crimes are far more common, according to FBI statistics, than “Islamophobic” crimes, and which in fact is a term designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad terror — is making people sick, folks, and you know what that means: it has to be forcibly suppressed. Those “political campaigns, news coverage and movies” that dare to criticize Islam and Muslims, or that are claimed by Muslims to do so, but be silenced. Free speech? Pah! It’s a public health issue!

“Why we should treat Islamophobia as a public health issue,” by Goleen Samari, Dallas Morning News, September 21, 2016: