Biden Vows to Stamp Out 'Islamicphobia'
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMag.com
The presidential campaign of 2020 has so far unfolded in more of a crisis atmosphere than any campaign in decades. Portland, Oregon and other cities are still engulfed by Antifa violence (as the Democrats side with the violent rioters), coronavirus hysteria is still hamstringing the nation’s economic life and prosperity, social media giants are waging all-out war against the freedom of speech, and America’s history and heritage is under direct and unapologetic assault from Marxists vowing a revolution in America. In the midst of all this, on July 20, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden demonstrated anew the disturbing priorities of his increasingly anti-American party.
Instead of addressing the sharp rise in crime and lawlessness, the demonization of American history and culture, the Left’s assault on the Second Amendment and other basic rights, or any of the other burning issues of the day, Biden chose to address the “Million Muslim Votes Summit,” hosted by Emgage Action, which claims to be is the largest Muslim PAC in the United States. In the course of his rambling remarks, Biden declared: “One of the things I think is important, I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith.”[1]
In the midst of what could very well turn out to be a second American civil war, or even the end of the United States as a free republic, Joe Biden is preoccupied with getting our schools to proselytize for Islam more intensively than they already do. For make no mistake: that is what Biden means when he says he wishes that our schools taught more about Islam. Schools already teach about Islam as a major world religion. That teaching has already been widely criticized as whitewashing the crimes committed in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings, and Biden wants even more of that: he thinks the cure for what he repeatedly called “Islamicphobia” (there’s that famous “stutter” again, but you can’t really fault him for getting a word wrong that’s artificial and made-up in the first place) is for American schoolchildren to be relentlessly indoctrinated with the idea that Islam is wonderful, and never mind about all those dead bodies of people killed to screams of “Allahu akbar.”
Biden was in effect adopting a familiar trope of post-9/11 Leftists and Islamic supremacists: that opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women is “hate,” a hatred that could be eradicated if we redneck yahoo Americans were just made to learn a bit about Islam. And so the public schools, which Democrats have worked for years to cleanse of every trace of Christianity, must be made an arena for teaching Islam. Imagine the uproar if Biden had said: “One of the things I think is important, I wish we taught more in our schools about the Christian faith.” He would have been denounced everywhere and probably would already have been replaced as the likely Democratic Party presidential candidate.
But his far-Left supporters will only applaud his recommendation that the public schools be increasingly devoted to teaching Islam. This is certain, as Biden went on to claim that America was a dark, dangerous place for Muslims, and it was all Donald Trump’s fault. The Islamic education was apparently needed because “under this administration, we’ve seen an unconscionable, an unconscionable rise in Islamicphobia and incidents including kids being bullied in schools and hate crimes in our communities.”[2] President Trump, Biden insisted, has “named people with a history of open Islamicphobia — open, straightforward, who have no business serving in high positions in our government — to key leadership roles in our Department of Defense and the US Agency of International Development.”[3]
“Islamophobia,” which is likely what Biden meant to say when he said “Islamicphobia,” is defined in a New York Post article about his address to Emgage as “prejudice against Muslims.”[4] Prejudice against any group is never justified. All too often, however, the term is used to refer to honest and accurate analysis of the ways in which jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims.
Biden is vowing to end all that, and effectively criminalize criticism of Islam, including all opposition to jihad terror, something that the Left has been working toward for a long time.
Even worse, the Washington Free Beacon reports that Emgage Action is “a George Soros-backed Muslim group, which cohosts a conference that in recent years drew speakers who called homosexuality a ‘disease’ and defended terrorist groups….Emgage has collaborated with a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group on events that in recent years attracted speakers who openly opposed LGBT rights and supported terror groups. Last year, Emgage became an official cohost of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conferences. ISNA was previously revealed to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood network—though it claims it is no longer associated with the group.”[5]
Biden didn’t hesitate to throw this crowd plenty of red meat, promising: “If I have the honor of being president, I will end the Muslim ban on day one, day one.”[6] There is no “Muslim ban,” but the idea that such a ban does actually exist is not just a product of the candidate’s rapidly deteriorating mental capacity. Islamic supremacists and their Leftist allies insist on calling the Trump administration’s travel bans on nationals from 13 countries a “Muslim ban,” even though five of those countries, Burma, Eritrea, Tanzania, North Korea and Venezuela, are not Muslim countries, and there are 49 other Muslim countries upon which there is no ban at all.
The ban exists because these countries cannot or will not provide accurate information about prospective immigrants. The list of countries was devised during the Obama administration, while Biden was Vice President. But that didn’t stop Biden from casting it in racial terms, declaring: “Muslim communities were the first to feel Donald Trump’s assault on black and brown communities in this country with his vile Muslim ban.”[7] It’s a peculiar “assault on black and brown communities” that leaves untouched scores of countries inhabited by “black and brown communities,” but the Left is working on the gut level of rage and hatred, not rational consideration.
Digging even deeper, Biden declared: “A hadith from the Prophet Muhammad instructs, ‘Whomever among you sees a wrong, let him change it with his hand. If he is not able, then with his tongue. If he is not able, then with his heart.’”[8]
The hadith Biden is quoting is this one: “On the authority of Abu Sa`eed al-Khudree (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah say, ‘Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.'” (Nawawi 34)
What might Muhammad, or whoever put this saying into his mouth, have meant by changing a wrong with one’s hand? One of the hazards of analysis of statements of jihad terrorists is that in an Islamic context, words seldom, if ever, mean what they are taken for granted as meaning by Westerners. This fools mainstream counterterror analysts on a daily basis: when Muslim leaders speak about wanting to establish justice, they think they’re ready to set up free societies, when actually they mean they want to impose Sharia.
So it is with Biden’s favored saying. Fighting and killing infidels is repeatedly commanded in the Qur’an (cf. 2:191. 4:89, 9:5, 9:289, 47:4, etc.), not because Islam is committed to mayhem for its own sake, but because the society of the unbelievers must be swept aside in favor of the rule of Islamic law. The twentieth-century Pakistani political leader and Islamic scholar Syed Abul A’la Maududi taught that Muslims must fight until non-Muslims were not be entrusted with the responsibilities of governing a state – any state. He declared that non-Muslims have “absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines. For if they are given such an opportunity, corruption and mischief will ensue. In such a situation the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.”[9]
This is the highest activity in which a Muslim can engage: another hadith has a Muslim asking Muhammad: “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 4.52.44)
Biden’s hadith, therefore, was not some Islamic Hallmark card; it was a command to wage war against unbelievers.
Note also Biden’s reference to “the Prophet Muhammad.” It’s standard journalistic practice today to assume that everyone is a Muslim and believes Muhammad is a prophet, so Biden is just following along with the crowd and pandering to his constituency, but it’s still a manifestation of Islamic supremacism. Biden’s handlers would never, ever give him a statement that referred to “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” But Islam is the Left’s preferred religion, and Islamopandering is the order of the day, so Biden refers without hesitation to “the prophet.”
As long as he is quoting hadith, when will Biden get around to this one? A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them…. If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)
Yet despite all his relentless Islamopandering, Biden’s supporters have him on a very short leash, and were not at all satisfied by all by the statements he made to Emgage. “I choose Biden,” said the notorious hijab-wearing anti-Semitic Leftist agitator Linda Sarsour.[10] “But I choose him as my opponent in the White House. I want him to defeat Trump so we can mobilize our movements to hold him accountable and push him to do and be better. We can’t do that with Trump.”[11]
That’s a decidedly tepid endorsement. But it makes it clear that Sarsour and the Islamic and Leftist organizations in the U.S. that support the “Palestinian” jihad (and the jihad elsewhere) will be keeping President Biden on a tight leash. If he doesn’t jump to do their bidding, they’ll turn on him, not with the fury with which they hate and wish to destroy Trump, but certainly they will have no sense of loyalty or trust, and not let him make him one misstep. This means that Biden in the White House will essentially be their tool.
If he didn’t have a 6,000-point lead in the polls and social media weren’t actively shutting down dissenting voices, I’d be worried. But all this gaslighting and incipient authoritarianism, as worrisome as it is, shows that even Biden’s base is deeply worried about his prospects. And that’s a glimmer of hope for America as a free society.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.