Biden: Muslims ‘face real challenges and threats in our society, including targeted violence and Islamophobia’

Here was the inimitable elder Joe Biden, in his welcoming Muslims to the White House to celebrate Eid al-Fitr:

“It’s [the Eid Al-Fitr celebration] especially important because today, around the world, we’re seeing so many Muslims being targeted with violence.”

Almost all of that violence that “targets Muslims” comes from other Muslims, but Biden doesn’t realize it, and neither Antony Blinken nor Jake Sullivan nor any of the President’s speechwriters was about to enlighten him. There are so many permutations and combinations of Muslim-on-Muslim violence, and Muslim-on-non-Muslim violence, that one category of conflict can easily bleed into another. There are conflicts between Sunnis and Shia (in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen), wars between Muslim and Muslim in civil wars (in Syria, Libya, Yemen), wars between political rivals over who gets to keep or take power (in Libya, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories). The texts and teachings of Islam are full of violence: Muhammad himself took part in 28 military campaigns; his loyal supporters, to fulfill his express wishes, murdered three people, seriatim, who had mocked him; Muhammad personally helped behead the 600-900 prisoners of the Banu Qurayza; the Qur’an itself is full of violence, with Allah commanding Muslims to “strike” and to “kill” and to “smite at the necks of” and to “strike terror in the hearts of” the Infidels. And in a famous hadith, Muhammad declared that “I have been made victorious through terror.” No wonder that the Islamic countries and peoples are naturally so violent. Muslims are not being targeted [by non-Muslims] with violence. it’s quite the reverse. Break that to the President gently, boys. His mind can only stand so much reality.

Joe Biden should be made aware that Christians are by far the most persecuted group, because of their religion, in the world. The NGO Open Doors USA reports that 360 million Christians in 2021 lived in countries where persecution was “significant.” And the chief persecutors are Muslims About 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of their religion; this includes what can only be estimates for those killed in sub-Saharan Africa, where many such killings go unreported. Many more Christians are wounded, or have their homes and businesses destroyed, or their women and girls taken, forced to convert to Islam, and then to marry their kidnappers.

Here’s a list of the countries where “extreme persecution” of Christians takes place, in order of their severity:

1. Afghanistan

2. North Korea

3. Somalia

4. Libya

5. Yemen 

6. Eritrea

7. Nigeria 

8. Pakistan

9. Iran

10. Saudi Arabia

Notice anything? Nine out of ten. Christians are on the receiving end, Muslims are their tormentors. ‘Nuff said.

Biden’s remark that “so many Muslims around the world are targeted with violence” suggests that they are being “targeted” by non-Muslims. That is not true. In the month of Ramadan that has just ended, 1,086 jihad acts took place around the world. No Muslims were killed in the United States during that period. Christians continue to be persecuted, and sometimes killed, in two dozen Muslim countries. In the United States in 2021, there were 2,717 antisemitic hate crimes, including murders, severe beatings, street robberies. In the same year, there were fewer than 100 hate crimes directed at Muslims, with no murders or severe beatings; half of the reported “hate crimes” consisted of “intimidation.” What might that mean? It cannot refer to physical contact, which would make the “hate crime” one of assault. I suspect it refers to such things as people looking disapprovingly at a woman wearing a niqab or a chador, or at least, a Muslim woman who likely imagined she was being looked at askance, and promptly reported it to CAIR, which encourages Muslims to report to them the least perceived slight, which they will then make sure it is presented to the FBI a a “hate crime.” Supporters of Israel shouting back at demonstrators at a pro-Palestinian rally might also find themselves charged with a “hate crime.” Someone who stands up at a town meeting to express support for anti-Sharia legislation may be charged with a “hate crime.” Someone who claims that Islam teaches contempt for non-Muslims will almost certainly be charged with an anti-Muslim “hate crime.” It won’t matter if he quotes the Quran as textual support for his claim: “Muslims are the best of people” (3:110) while non-Muslims “are the most vile of created beings.” He will nonetheless be charged — a troublemaker! –with “intimidation.” What Muslims claim as “hate crimes” are very different from what Jews routinely have had to endure as “hate crimes.” And keep steadily in mind the numbers: 2717 antisemitic hate crimes, and 96 anti-Muslim hate crimes, in 2021. Half of the latter are characterized by the FBI as “intimidation.” 

Biden went on to give his version of Obama’s ahistorical claim that “Muslims have always been a part of America’s story.” A well-pleased pleaser, Biden gave his Muslim guests what they no doubt wanted to hear:

“Muslims make our nation stronger every single day, even as they still face real challenges and threats in our society, including targeted violence and Islamophobia that exists,” he said to applause.

Comment:

There is, of course, no way to prove or disprove Biden’s saccharine statement that “Muslims make our nation stronger every single day.” I won’t belabor the point, but how many of us feel that Muslim terror attacks in New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Los Angeles, Fort Hood, Orlando, San Bernardino, Chattanooga, Little Rock,and so on and so bloody forth, have “made our nation stronger”? How many of us, because of Muslim terror attacks, now spend an extra half-hour waiting until we can go through security before every plane trip, which — with 700 million trips taken each year by American s– means 350 million man-hours are spent on Islam-prompted security? Aside from airports, how many other places after 9/11 began to require security screening, meaning more hundreds of millions of hours spent – wasted – on such security checks? And if we assume that on average, one billion hours are so spent by Americans each year, at an average wage of $30 an hour, that amounts to $30 billion in lost wages.

The Department of Homeland Security spends $97 billion annually, a great deal of it on protecting Americans against Muslim terrorism. In 2003, the FBI estimated that there were 350,000 Muslims in federal, state, and local prisons, with about 40,000 prisoners converting to Islam each year. In the nearly twenty years since those figures were released, many more Muslims have been incarcerated. While Muslims make up 1% of the general population, they are 12% of those in the state prison population, and roughly 10% of the federal prison population. Given that the total cost of incarcerating all prisoners – federal, state, and local – is now $182 billion, we can calculate that Muslim prisoners cost the federal, state, and local governments a total of at least $18 billion each year. Add to those figures the cost of welfare benefits to Muslim immigrants, for subsidized housing, Medicaid, SNAP programs, the amounts for which we can only guess as the recipients are not broken down by religion. But you get the idea. The 1% of our population that is Muslim is very expensive to maintain.

And how is our country “made stronger” by having in our midst so many Muslims whose texts and teachings tell them that they are the ‘best of people” (3:110) while non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6)? One would have thought that such teachings, if taken to heart, are a permanent source of rancor, mistrust, and disunity in our society.

The “targeted violence” against Muslims that Biden mentions hardly exists. Perhaps he’s been reading too many press releases from CAIR. Fewer than 30 anti-Muslim crimes in the U.S. involved any kind of physical violence in 2021. Most anti-Muslim “hate crimes” consist of “intimidation” — a “crime” which often consists of nothing more than a disapproving look at a Muslim woman in black niqab or chador. Also reported as committing anti-Muslim “hate crimes” are those who speak in support of anti-Sharia legislation, or parents who object to their children being taught in school to recite the Shahada, Islam’s Profession of Belief, as part of their “diversity, equity, and inclusion” training. The most serious violence against Muslims in recent years was a pipe-bomb attack on a mosque in Minnesota, that caused property damage but no harm to people; that took place in 2017, that is, a full five years ago.

Biden might have said something briefer, more dignified, and much closer to the truth in his welcoming remarks to the Eid el-Fitr dinner held at the White House: He might have said something like this: 

“I am glad to welcome you to the White House, where we can celebrate the Eid el-Fitr together in peace and security. I know that this is a time of great upheaval and anxiety in the Muslim world. There is the continuing repression of the Uighurs in China. There are the civil wars in Libya, Yemen, and Syria. There is the continuing threat from murderous terrorist groups, the jihadists who make life so difficult for peaceful Muslims and non-Muslims alike. America will always, of course, stand with those moderate Muslims who reject violence and terrorism. Eid Mubarak.”