It would be nice to not have to resort to selfish thinking anytime a terrorist attack occurs. However, with the number of terrorist attacks that have happened over the years and the backlash that’s resulted, it’s become difficult, almost impossible, to not think about how this would affect you.
On Saturday in London, three attackers inspired by the Islamic State used a van to plow through pedestrians on London Bridge and then stabbed several others at Borough Market resulting in the death of seven people and wounding 48. It was a tragic and horrifying incident.
Following the attack, the onus was immediately put on the Muslim community.
Fox News’ Jesse Watters held a segment between two Muslim commentators of differing opinions, Dean Obeidallah and Zuhdi Jasser. In it, Watters said to his guests, “We had our people look for examples of Muslims in America protesting terrorism, and I gotta be honest with you, we didn’t find a lot of examples.”
After getting into a back and forth with Obeidallah, Watters suggested that American Muslims protesting terrorism will send a symbol to groups like the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda that we’re not with them and would set off some momentum in defeating and destroying them.
The problem with this logic is that Watters has been ignoring all instances of Muslims protesting and condemning terrorism publicly. Muslims around the world have protested terrorism, only to end up dead.
Just this past week in Afghanistan, Muslims much braver than me protested terrorism following a devastating truck bombing that killed 150 people and wounded more than 300. That resulted in even more deaths after police opened fire on the crowd, killing nine.
Another criticism that’s brought up is that Muslims don’t report potential terrorists and that mosques are breeding grounds for radicalization.
This is patently false. Of course, there are some Muslims who won’t report potential terrorists, but, by and large, Muslims are reporting terrorists to law enforcement. In fact, an undercover FBI informant who infiltrated a mosque in Irvine, Calif., stirred the pot so much to entrap other Muslims to engage in “violent jihad” that he was reported to law enforcement himself by the mosque.
Unfortunately, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been dropping the ball when trying to prevent these attacks from happening. From the Sept. 11 attackers to Omar Mateen in the Pulse nightclub attack, they were known to authorities, but not enough was done.
Then, you have leaders like London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is arguably the most prominent Muslim leader in the West condemning terrorism in the harshest terms. Meanwhile, he’s lambasted by President Trump on Twitter for being too politically correct.
Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his “no reason to be alarmed” statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017
With all due respect to Trump, Khan’s response to instill calm among his constituents in London isn’t being politically correct. It’s called leadership. Sending everyone into a panic because of an attack that occurred in your domain does no one any favors. It just causes more fear and instability, which is exactly what groups like the Islamic State want.
In a conversation with Khuram Zaman, who’s hosted a number of hack-a-thons to understand how violent extremists are using social media to get their message out, terrorists attack when they see a window of opportunity to create instability.
“What jihadists want is to force a clash of civilizations,” Zaman explained. “The way they see Middle Eastern regimes out there is that they’ll engage in attacks to show that their security state is weak. So then, those regimes turn against their populations, and their populations basically revolt. And then they get the United States government and other Western powers to get involved in it, so they can trigger an apocalyptic war.”
The United States, along with its allies, must exhibit an unshakable poker face to terrorists like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Of course, we must not alienate our Muslim neighbors, but we also shouldn’t pretend everything is all hunky dory.
There’s a balanced, yet effective approach to fighting terrorism. There are good ideas from both sides in how we stop the threat of the Islamic State. We just aren’t listening to each other yet.
Siraj Hashmi (@SirajaHashmi) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an assistant editor at Red Alert Politics (a sister publication to the Washington Examiner).
If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.
