Battle lines are being drawn as Republican Rep. Peter King prepares to hold a high-profile hearing Thursday that will examine the threat posed by radical Islam in the United States.
The New York lawmaker, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has received threats in recent days but says he “will not back down.” His plans have divided lawmakers on Capitol Hill and triggered a backlash from Muslim and civil liberties groups claiming he’s unfairly targeting members of one faith.
But King said Wednesday he’s moving ahead with the hearing on the basis of “where the evidence is.”
“That’s where the danger is coming from,” he told Fox News. “It’s a small percentage. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are outstanding Americans. But the reality is that the threat is coming from within that community.”
King said that if he thought members of the Irish, Jewish or any other ethnic community were exhibiting threatening signs he would launch an investigation into them as well. But he said Al Qaeda is actively trying to radicalize American Muslims, with some success.
“This has nothing to do with Islam as a religion,” King said.
According to a report in the New York Post, one witness — M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy — plans to say imams in America promote a “lack of cooperation and lack of assimilation” which feeds radicalization. He reportedly plans to say mosques are “feeding into that ideology.”
King got an endorsement Wednesday from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who suggested King is on solid ground in calling the hearing.
“It’s obvious where there have been problems with terrorist activity,” Cantor said. “We in this country are threatened by the spread of radical Islam.”
The White House on Sunday also dispatched Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser, to deliver a speech on Islamic radicalization Sunday at a Virginia mosque. McDonough stressed that the United States does not practice “guilt by association” but also said afterward that the administration welcomes “congressional involvement.”
However, other lawmakers and groups have not been so welcoming.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., slammed King in a statement Wednesday, warning the hearing could divide Americans based on religion.
“I take the threat of terrorism very seriously, and no one is more committed to hunting down terrorists and bringing them to justice, wherever they live, than I am,” Reid said. “But I am deeply concerned about these hearings, which demonize law-abiding American Muslims who make important contributions to our society, as I would be about congressional hearings to investigate Catholics, Jews or people of any other faith based solely on their religion.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations joined other groups for a press conference Wednesday denouncing the hearing. CAIR Director Nihad Awad said that King’s “bias” and “fear-mongering” make him “unfit” to lead the House committee. Awad condemned violent extremism but said King was spreading “false” allegations and “irresponsible rhetoric” about American Muslims.
CAIR was among the groups that backed a protest in New York City over the weekend.
Dozens of organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, also sent out a letter Tuesday comparing King’s plans to “McCarthyism and Japanese internment.”
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who is Muslim, criticized King in an interview Wednesday, saying he was assigning “blame” before the hearing even begins.
(Source: Fox News)
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6 Responses
Congressman Peter King, please, please don’t back down!
The analogy is correctly drawn to the status of Japanese Americans in 1942. Throwing the West Coast Japanese in “camps” was a mistake. They should have conducted hearings in 1942, which would have established that very few Japanese Americans supported Shintoism or the nationalist, racist culture that was then the norm in Japan.
If the hearings show that the vast majority of American Muslims are not fanatical “jihadists”, and that in fact many chose America over life in Islamic countries in order to escape radical Islam, the hearings will have accomplished a great deal. The question is whether the person running the hearing is trying to make a case that Islam should be treated like communists, or whether he is open for the idea of establishing that most American Muslims are not terrorists.
2. Peter King has been on many local NY radio shows loudly proclaiming that he hopes muslimsin the USA are NOT pro terrorist.
I dread the day when American religious Zionists are investigated for their loyalty to America and cooperation with American law enforcement authorities. The current support and favorable position of Jews in the United States is a recent phenomenon, and it will not be too long before the long history of American anti-Semitism repeats itself. The proposed hearings by Congressman King set an ideal precedent for anti-Semites of the future to find ways of smearing and persecuting Jews for their opinions about Israel.
#4, i agree. the much much greater threat is this situation, not the muslims. so its illegal if you don’t act exactly like a european huh.
This “investigation” reminds me of the late unlamented House Unamerican Activities Committee of the 50s. Or. perhaps Rep. King is the second coming of Sen. McCarthy.