June 29, 2016
Page 7
O PINION
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Urging his Followers to Reach for Their Guns:
ISIS must
love Trump
P eter C erto
As the sun set
over New York
on June 12, hun-
dreds of Muslims
gathered in Hud-
son River Park
to break their
Ramadan fast to-
gether.
Iftar, the evening Ramadan
meal, is often a joyous celebration
of faith and family. But the mood
that Sunday was solemn: That
morning, news had broken of the
ghastly massacre of LGBTQ rev-
elers at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
A lone Muslim had allegedly
perpetrated the attack. Here by the
Hudson, over 200 knelt in prayer.
“We’re praying for those who
were lost,” one woman explained in
a video circulated by the Hufington
Post, her voice breaking. “As Mus-
lims, we’re united in our outrage
over this senseless act of violence.”
Meanwhile, an Orlando imam
condemned terrorism as un-Islam-
ic and afirmed his belief that “Is-
lam teaches peace.” The Florida
chapter of a national Muslim group
by
called on members to donate blood
for the victims. And statements
of sympathy tumbled forth from
American Muslims in what CBS
News called “an avalanche.”
“Today, we stand in solidar-
ity with the LGBTQ communi-
ty,” said the group Muslim Ad-
vocates. “Your grief is our grief.
Your outrage is our outrage.”
Unfortunately, none of those
touching gestures deterred Don-
ald Trump from warning darkly
that “radical Islam is coming to
our shores.”
In a falsehood-riddled speech
following the Orlando massacre,
the presumptive GOP nominee
blamed the shooting on immigra-
tion and “political correctness.”
As Muslims all over America
sent their sympathies to Orlando,
Trump mocked his Democratic
rival’s insistence that “Muslims
are peaceful and tolerant people.”
He accused Muslims of causing
“death and destruction” by cov-
ering up terrorism in their midst
(though it was later revealed that
a Muslim member of Mateen’s
community had reported him as
suspicious).
Then, in perhaps the most om-
inous part of the address, Trump
claimed that Democrats will “take
away Americans’ guns and then
admit the very people who want to
slaughter us.”
Muslim immigrants are the
problem, he seems to be saying.
And guns are the solution.
If you ask me, I’d feel much
safer with the crowd at Hudson
River Park than anywhere near a
rally of armed Trump supporters.
But here’s the creepier part: For
all his blathering that “we have to
get smart” about “radical Islam,”
Trump is stupidly playing right
into ISIS’s hands.
Like Trump himself, the group
beneits immensely from anything
that drives a wedge between Mus-
lims and the societies they live in.
ISIS said as much itself — in
plain English — in a publication
detailing its plan to “destroy the
gray zone” between inidels and
believers. Since most Muslims
seem to like living in the liber-
al societies of Europe and North
America, ISIS propagandists have
written, the only way to drive up
recruitment is to make Muslims
feel unwelcome there.
No wonder ISIS recruiters are
now featuring Donald Trump in
advertisements.
It’s not because they’re afraid
of him — it’s because few peo-
ple are working harder to make
Muslims feel unwelcome than
he is. Civil rights groups report
that Trump’s rise has paralleled a
shocking increase in hate crimes
against Muslims in this country.
That’s an outrage. And it’s thor-
oughly self-defeating.
In fact, the United States has
arguably the most prosperous,
well-integrated Muslim popula-
tion in the western world. Even as
ISIS has scored a few recruiting
successes among the much more
marginalized Muslim communities
of Europe — though even there the
group falls way outside the main-
stream — it’s lat-lined here.
Scenes like the iftar gather-
ing in New York, in other words,
are the rule, not the exception.
They’re a touching rejoinder to
the toxic politics of division, and a
far more accurate relection of our
Muslim neighbors than anything
peddled by Trump.
And, not least, they’re a much
better asset in the ight against ter-
rorism than any bullet or bomb —
or any demagogue who urges his
followers to reach for their guns at
the irst sign of trouble.
OtherWords.org editor Peter
Certo writes about foreign policy
for the Institute for Policy Studies.
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