In her recent editorial, Rory Cohen uses the O.C. Register to promote a documentary called “The Grand Deception.” The film’s producer, Steven Emerson, is described as an “award-winning journalist,” yet Cohen fails to mention that Emerson has a rich history of peddling dubious claims against Muslims and Islam.

If readers are going to get a taste of Emerson’s work, they should also know that Emerson is a self-declared expert on terrorism who falsely claimed that 80 to 85 percent of United States mosques were controlled by extremists after 9/11. This claim, parroted by the likes of Rep. Peter King (R-NY), dates back to a comment made by a fringe Muslim cleric, Sheikh Hisham Kabbani, in 1999. It was later found to be dubbed highly unsubstantiated, according to the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker.”

Additionally, Emerson’s website, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, promotes the allegation that American Muslim groups collude with the Muslim Brotherhood, a religiously influenced political movement based in Egypt, to “infiltrate” the U.S. and challenge it through a process they call “civilization jihad.” This conspiracy is based off of a single 1991 document, which experts like Professor Tarek Masoud of Harvard University have asserted is a wildly overblown notion; in fact, Masoud testified the notion was inflated during an April 2011 House Intelligence Oversight Committee.

RELATED COLUMN:

Rory Cohen: Tracking Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Grand Deception’

Apparently, according to Emerson, extremism is the only prism by which Muslims can be understood – we are either terrorists or subject to the accusation of terrorism, until we can prove otherwise. And Emerson’s attempt at a documentary serves to perpetuate that Islamophobic framework. Such prejudicial and intentional efforts to misrepresent Muslims and Islam have led Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media watchdog group, to list Emerson as one of America’s leading Islamophobes in its 2008 report “Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation.” In addition, the Center for American Progress (CAP) highlights Emerson’s misinformation campaign in its comprehensive 2011 report “Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.” CAP’s report shows how Emerson and like-minded individuals operate within a discourse that has served to justify unconditional support for Israel by promoting intolerance of Islam and Muslims. Such efforts often receive the ideological and financial support of right-wing, pro-Israel groups.

These examples point to Emerson’s role and contribution in a well-established and well-funded industry that employs fear to create an aura of suspicion around Muslims and to portray them as a threat by reducing them to stereotypes of terrorism and fanaticism. This campaign of making Muslims a suspect community comes with serious domestic and international consequences.

American Muslim organizations and student groups have made positive social contributions across many fields and institutions. Similarly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is proud of its efforts to defend civil liberties and foster mutual understanding through its coalition work and peace-building initiatives. But the likes of Emerson aren’t interested in such efforts to promote peace, justice, and unity. This track record undermines their aims to conflate Islam and its 1.6 billion followers worldwide with extremism. The toxic rhetoric of Islamophobes like Emerson results in a greater susceptibility to hate-based attacks among American Muslim, Middle Eastern and Sikh communities.

Recent history has taught us that the crimes of hateful groups like the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. and the Nazis in Germany were the natural result of a deliberate attempt to dehumanize others through their vitriolic speech and propaganda. It is a shame that the Register and Cohen would give space to the likes of Emerson whom we believe aim to marginalize the American Muslim community, and divide Orange County and America.