Anti-American violence throughout the Muslim world, ostensibly over a cheap Internet film denigrating the Muslim prophet Muhammad, may be misguided, but it’s a result of “the lack of dignity, the lack of respect that they’re being shown.” And it’s up to America to change policies to calm things.
That’s the message a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) official brought to a television interview Sunday.
And that’s not the worst thing about Cyrus McGoldrick’s comments.
McGoldrick’s interview was on Press TV, an Iranian government-controlled English-language news outlet. He never condemned the violence outright, saying “We’re very sensitive to the loss of life” and “people’s lives are always to be mourned.” The angry mobs show “no real understanding of nuance” because the American government neither financed the film nor had anything to do with its distribution.
Few protestors likely even saw the video, said McGoldrick, civil rights director for CAIR’s New York chapter. “And I don’t think it’s about the film at all, really, I think that people are tired. People have had enough of what is seen by them, what looks to them like America’s war on Islam. And this is one of the symptoms of that.”
That “war on Islam” narrative is acknowledged to be among the most effective messages in radicalizing Muslims. Even the White House acknowledges this. In the past week, a federal judge sentenced a 29-year-old to 30 years in prison after he plotted to detonate a suicide bomb inside the United States Capitol and arrested an 18-year-old in Chicago who thought he was detonating a car bomb outside a bar.
Both Amine El-Khalifi and Adel Daoud thought America was waging war on Islam.Keep reading…