WASHINGTON AND THE WORLD No, the Travel Ban Isn’t Being Used as ISIS Propaganda The claim is fueled by anti-Trumpers trying to make a point and distracts us from the complex realities of jihad.

Simon Cottee is a visiting senior fellow with the Freedom Project at Wellesley College, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He is the author of The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam.

What does ISIS think of President Donald Trump and the travel ban? The consensus among liberals, prominent terrorism experts and even some conservatives is that the jihadists are enthused, in a gleeful, hand-rubbing sort of way, by his presidency and that they warmly welcome the “self-inflicted wound” of the executive order on refugees as a “propaganda victory.” The reason for this, the argument goes, is that both Trump and the ban play directly into the hands of ISIS and its narrative that “America is at war with Islam” and that the terrorist group will make symbolic capital from it.

On one fundamental point, the consensus is clearly right: Trump and the travel ban can theoretically be framed in such a way as to support ISIS’ propaganda narrative of a “war against Islam.” The reality, however, is that ISIS has remained conspicuously silent on Trump’s presidency, let alone any of his policies.


Liberals and many counter-terrorism experts, by contrast, haven’t stopped talking about them, insisting that the ban in particular risks creating new ISIS recruits. But this says more about their deep-seated dislike of Trump and his polices than it does about the complex realities of radicalization. Anti-Trumpers’ and journalists’ panicked focus on the role of Trump is not only unfounded; it’s a strange, politically motivated reduction of the complexities of jihad from the same experts who were cautioning us against “reductive” theories of terrorism such a short time ago.

First, the facts: Despite repeated claims that the travel ban is a propaganda victory for ISIS and that the group will use it to attract new recruits, the ban has yet to be mentioned by ISIS leaders and has not been featured in its official propaganda. True, the ban has reportedly been mentioned and discussed by anonymous ISIS supporters on the internet, but it’s profoundly misleading to present this as evidence that “ISIS is using the ban.” Even more fanciful is the suggestion that what these supporters say in their online echo-chambers will radicalize anyone not already down with the jihadist cause.

In fact, the idea that ISIS is using the travel ban, or will use the ban, in its propaganda is based more on a masochistic strain of wishful thinking than on any concrete evidence, and seems to have gained momentum after a tweetstorm by New York Times ISIS reporter Rukmini Callimachi. “The resident,” she tweeted, referring to an anonymous source in western Mosul, “said ISIS has been openly celebrating the ban. They’ve even coined a phrase for it: ‘The Blessed Ban.’”

These comments were widely taken up by news media to support the “self-inflicted wound” narrative promulgated by Trump’s detractors, but as Callimachi went on to acknowledge in tweets that went largely unreported: “Yet we still have not seen an *official* ISIS statement regarding the ban and Trump.” A Politico Magazine story by ISIS researcher Amarnath Amarasingam also found evidence to support the same kind of disapproval, based on online interviews with five Western foreigners embedded with ISIS- and al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria and Iraq. What the story didn’t mention was the absence of any reference to the ban in ISIS’s two flagship publications, al-Naba and Rumiyah. Strikingly, the only terrorism experts who have acknowledged this absence are Michael S. Smith and Rita Katz.

The first problem with the blowback theory of the Trump presidency and travel ban is that it lacks evidence; but the larger problem is that the inclination to believe it, especially among Trump critics, obscures a much bigger truth about ISIS’s animus toward America and the West in general. For ISIS, the true object of hate is not the “alpha” male in the White House, or his illiberal and senseless policies, but America itself—or more precisely, that version of America Trump seems so intent on dismantling: America as a pluralistic, secularly democratic and tolerant liberal society.

No one has been clearer on this matter than ISIS. In an article titled, “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You,” published in Issue 15 of its online propaganda magazine Dabiq (since renamed Rumiyah), ISIS sought to clarify, under six enumerated points, the following:

1. We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers…

2. We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted…

3. In the case of the atheist fringe, we hate you and wage war against you because you disbelieve in the existence of your Lord and Creator…

4. We hate you for your crimes against Islam…

5. We hate you for your crimes against the Muslims…

6. We hate you for invading our lands…

“What’s important to understand here,” the author continued, “is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary … The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”

ISIS, as this makes vividly clear, opposes not just what America does at home and abroad, but the very idea and self-image of America as a democratic, pluralistic and secular society. To put it bluntly: They hate us because of who we are, not what we do.

As a result, liberal stances toward Islam and Muslims are just as readily weaponized to serve ISIS’s aims as policies like Trump’s, but such propaganda and recruitment techniques are rarely mentioned in the Western media narrative. For instance, while ISIS, at the official level, has ignored Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, it all too readily seized on Pope Francis’s efforts to portray Islam in a positive light as a pacific religion, condemning this, in Issue 15 of Dabiq, in no uncertain terms:

While previous popes spoke against Islam due to the actual reality they faced, based on mutual enmity between the pagan Christians and monotheistic Muslims, recent popes – and especially Pope Francis – have attempted to paint a picture of heartwarming friendship, seeking to steer Muslim masses away from the obligation of waging jihad against disbelief.

The author of the above also castigated the pope for his comments, following the Orlando massacre last year, “that sodomites ‘must not be discriminated against, that they must be respected and accompanied pastorally’ …” This, the author continued, was “part of the papal mission to garner any support possible, even from the likes of filthy, effeminate sodomites, in the crusade against the Muslim nation in general and the Islamic State in particular.” And that’s just one example that shows how irrational it is that experts and media appear to only be interested in the conservative policies or rhetoric that result in propaganda victories for ISIS.

It’s obvious that U.S. domestic politics is what’s behind this selectivity bias. One of the earliest iterations of the “Trump is a boon to ISIS” meme can be traced to a debate in late 2015, when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton charged that Trump was “becoming ISIS’s best recruiter.” Clinton claimed that ISIS was “showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.” That claim was debunked, but Trump’s critics have held onto the thinking behind it, despite its foundation on shaky evidence.

President Trump’s travel ban is a betrayal of the values of pluralism and openness. It is unjust, risks alienating many Muslims and won’t make America safer. But ISIS couldn’t care less. Liberals and experts should focus on the real reasons for opposing bad policies instead of giving oxygen to a theory of terrorism that is driven more by an imperative to condemn Trump than by a concern to understand the real security challenges facing us.