Obama’s Islamophilia

If Barack Obama is right, there is no Islamic terror wave today, just a few “incidents.” Likewise, progressive politicians in Germany, Britain, Sweden and other parts of Europe say much the same thing: no need to worry -- only isolated incidents.

The European progressives have been saying for years that reports of Muslim immigrants carrying out sexual assaults on non-Muslims, committing hate crimes against Jews, planning terror assaults on newspapers, cartoonists and authors are the products of “Islamophobia” -- an unreasoning fear of Muslims. The facts say that Obama and the European progressives are wrong. Indeed, the facts show that Obama and many European leaders -- and leaders of public opinion such as newspaper editors and television directors -- have been trying to hide the sad truth, by claiming that people who see the truth are suffering from a “phobia.” The Soviet Union tried a similar tactic. For years, anyone who criticized Soviet policy was classified as a mental case, shipped off to a well-guarded mental asylum. The recent New Year’s Eve rapes and assaults this year in in Cologne and other German towns by gangs of Muslim men were hidden by German politicians some of whom even tried to blame the women for bringing it on themselves. In Britain, local authorities conspired for years to hide a wave of hundreds even thousands -- of sexual abuse crimes committed by Muslim immigrants. In France, police and media conspired to hide the rising tide of Muslim hate crimes against Jews, burying the stories or classifying them as property offenses. French newspapers began to take the terror a bit more seriously when the terrorists attacked a French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, a year ago. In Sweden, hundreds of rapes by Muslim immigrants show a strong anti-Western motive, but this motive has been concealed in politically correct cataloguing of crimes. Meanwhile, he Swedish foreign minister regularly condemns Israel for “executing” Palestinians trying to murder Israelis of all ages with guns, knives and even tractors. According to the Swedish foreign minister, the Israelis are crazy, maniacal killers who need to be investigated. Sadly, the reports claiming that Arab/Islamic terror groups have swept across several countries in Asia and Africa, leaving a trail of dead bodies is not exaggerated. Sadly, Arab-Islamic terror has begun to take root inside America and Europe: attacks on newspapers, terror aimed at military bases, assassinations of police, bombings and planned shootings against churches and synagogues. Meanwhile, Obama and his top aides speak about “hate crimes against Muslims,” though crime statistics clearly show there are many more hate crimes against Jews. Obama’s State of the Union hinted darkly that Republicans were fanning anti-Muslim sentiment, just as Hillary Clinton blamed Donald Trump for causing Islamic extremism. But no Arab-Islamic terrorist is acting because of Trump or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. Claiming that Republicans cause Muslims to radicalize may be politically advantageous, and it may even be “politically correct,” but it is as factually inaccurate as Obama, Clinton and Susan Rice insisting that some obscure YouTube video is what set off the murderous terror attack on US officials in Benghazi Libya on September 11, 2012. Between 2012 and 2016, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and their aides have not learned anything. They refuse to recognize that some Muslims want to impose their ideology on their neighbors, whether they are in the Middle East or the Middle West. Obama’s speech said little about the real “State of the Union” or the “State of the World,” but it spoke volumes about Obama’s State of Mind In Obama’s mind, there is an abiding passion to defend Islam, even Islamists who promote forced conversion to Islam. In Obama’s mind (and Hillary’s and John Kerry’s), one must overlook or excuse or explain violent Islamic movements as some kind of reaction to American action, to some US or Western “imperialism” or “aggression.” This is a paternalistic view of Muslims as little children who are reacting to abuse by Westerners rather than viewing Muslim regimes as adult actors who have chosen a certain path for their own reasons. In Obama’s mind -- and perhaps the mind of the Swedish foreign minister and other European leaders -- Arab-Islamic terrorists act and Muslims are radicalized because America went into Kuwait or Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein; The US was too harsh with Islamic Iran and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Israelis built a house in Jerusalem or Israelis defend themselves against terror Americans captured Muslim terrorists and jailed them in Guantanamo Let’s reverse the order and give a short reality check: Terrorists attacked America before the US began putting terrorists in Gitmo, and the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 was inspired by a leader of the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman; Arab-Islamic terrorists began attacking Israel before Israel built a single home in Jerusalem or a settlement in the so-called “West Bank” Israel conquered after it was attacked in 1967 by several Arab countries; The Muslim Brotherhood -- which gave birth to Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shebab and ISIL/ISIS/Da’esh -- was founded in 1927 by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt, and its ideologue, Sa’ad Qutb, visited the US in the 1950’s, pronouncing it corrupt; Ayatollah Khomeini called America “the Great Satan” as his supporters invaded the US embassy in Iran in 1978, imprisoning US diplomats Obama entered office in 2009, reaching out to the terror state of Iran and to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, promising to reinvigorate the Middle East, but what we have reaped is not “hope and change,” but hype and chaos. To fear the very real results of Islamist aggression is not Islamophobia or any phobia, but to live in a state of denial of Islamist actions and plans is a dangerous delusion. When an adult loves children in the wrong way for the wrong reasons, it is pedophilia. When politicians love or excuse Islamic terror, we should call it Islamophilia. Dr. Michael Widlanski is the author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, published by Threshold/ Simon and Schuster. He teaches at Bar-Ilan University , was strategic affairs advisor in Israel ’s Ministry of Public Security, and was the Schusterman visiting professor at University of California, Irvine for 2013-14.