The Left’s media propaganda machine is attempting to conflate Islamic extremism, jihad, with so-called Christian “extremism.” By calling attention to Christians, multiculturalism-worshipping leftists hope to downplay the unequivocal threat of radical Islam.
A recent article in left-wing Salon even attempted to blur the lines between Christian “extremism” and “far-right” extremism to distract its audience from fanatic Muslim terrorists.
But the fact is, most people can see beyond the Left’s false analogies and Islam apologetics. There is no equivalence between Islamic extremism and so-called Christian “extremism.”
Here are seven statistics proving that Islamic extremism is singularly dangerous in the existential treat it poses to modern civilized society.
1. Larger proportions of Muslims hold extremist views compared to Christians. This normalizes Islamic religious extremism. It’s fair to say that in some Muslim-majority countries, extremist views are the mainstream. In contrast, most Christians in modern liberal democracies do not hold radical, retrograde, and oppressive views of women and religious minorities (particularly Jews).
According the a recent Pew Research Center poll highlighted in The Daily Caller, a significant proportion of Arab Muslims endorse sharia law as the ideal legal code for society and favor harsh punishments for non-believers that violate the tenets of Islam:
86 percent of Muslims in Pakistan, 84 percent in Afghanistan, 81 percent in the Palestinian territories, 80 percent in Egypt, 65 percent in Jordan, 57 percent in Iraq and 54 percent in Malaysia and Bangladesh favor stoning as a lethal punishment for adultery. A majority of Muslims in several countries also support the death penalty for Muslims who convert away from Islam, including in Afghanistan (79 percent), Egypt (88 percent), Pakistan (75 percent), the Palestinian territories (62 percent), Jordan (83 percent) and Malaysia (58 percent).
2. The world is being torn apart by Islamic terrorists. There’s a handful of powerless KKK members in the United States who purport to be defending Christianity. This analogy shouldn’t even be made, but it’s the Left’s favorite one. So the for sake of argument, let’s break it down:
In Syria alone, there are dozens and dozens of Islamic terrorist groups eager to carve out Sharia-observing territories. Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah have become household names all throughout the world. The harsh reality is that these groups are functioning on the basis of the hadiths and the Qu’ran. There’s a reason why ISIS spares boys under 12, enslaves women, and slaughters the men. That’s what the early armies of Muhammad did to the Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza. ISIS, in particular, cites Quranic scripture at every turn, follows the prescriptions of the hadiths meticulously, and encourages absolute devotion to Allah, promising its fighters paradise and virgins when they die glorious deaths as martyrs.
Then there’s the KKK, a White supremacist group that burns crosses. First of all, the KKK hardly has power in the 21st century. They’re more of a bogeyman, weaponized by the Left to demonize conservatives. More importantly, this group is hardly Christian. Jesus, both as a historical figure and biblical figure, was largely powerless from a political perspective. He didn’t command an army the same way Muhammad did. He didn’t conquer territory. He didn’t kill people for refusing to convert. He didn’t engage in diplomacy or war. So what model are the members of the KKK following? Which Jesus do they cite when they carry out their atrocities? Bottom line: the KKK’s actions are hardly guided by principles or verses written in Christian holy texts. They are a racial group. Its members wear large crosses without even attempting to understand theology.
3. Islamic extremists purport to be fighting for the same cause: the realization of a true caliphate and the imposition of Sharia law. ISIS’ raison d’être is similar to Al-Qaeda’s. The modern West is the anti-thesis of the Prophet’s regressive 7th century vision of utopia. Therefore, westerners must die. In contrast, so-called Christian “extremists,” often conflated erroneously with “far-right” extremists, subscribe to a variety of causes.
The Resurgent notes:
What [the Left] do not care to bring up, but what the data shows, is that “far-right” extremism is not a common ideology, but various people and various causes all considered to be “of the far-right.” When the data is actually broken out by, for example, Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, land claimants, militia members, etc. the data shows that Islamist extremists are vastly more likely to engage in violence.
4. Terrorist attacks predominately take place in Muslim-majority countries.
CNS News explains, citing the U.S. State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2015:
Although terrorist attacks took place in 92 countries in 2015, they were heavily concentrated geographically, the report says:
More than 55 percent of all attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria), and 74 percent of all deaths due to terrorist attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria).
In addition, the world’s most infamous Islamic theocracy also happens to be the foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Iran provides “a range of support, including financial, training, and equipment, to groups around the world – particularly Hezbollah,” reports CNS News. Iran has been “deeply involved in the conflict in Syria, working closely with the Assad regime to counter the Syrian opposition, and also in Iraq where Iran continued to provide support to (Shiite) militia groups.”
5. The Left intentionally attempts to deceive with its terrorism stats about Islamic extremism vs “far-right” or “white” extremism. Across the leftist media, journalists are reporting that there have been more instances of “far-right” extremism than Islamic terrorism. That’s a profound mischaracterization of reality. The truth is, the Left toys with the definition of “extremism” and “terrorism” to include minor incidents like verbal abuse. As stated earlier, the Left’s definition of “far-right” extremism is incredibly broad, while its definition of Islamic terrorism is deliberately narrow. Moreover, the Left often intentionally uses post-9/11 numbers to exclude the staggering death toll that resulted from the Islamic terrorist attack against the World Trade Center.
Shortly before leaving office, President Obama doubled-down on the Left’s attempts to downplay Islamic terrorism by making the facile claim that “[n]o foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland.” But as The Daily Wire’s James Barrett pointed out, Obama is guilty of verbal wizardry, to steal a phrase from the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Barrett explained thusly:
The President’s claim — which he has repeated in some form or fashion over the last few years — is an obvious rhetorical attempt to gloss over the reality of the threat of radical Islamic terror on American soil. The attempt to disconnect “lone wolf” terrorists from the terror organizations who often inspire them does nothing to alleviate the pain of those who have suffered at the hands of jihadists and only hurts prevention efforts. Rhetorical tricks aside, the reality is that during Obama’s tenure scores of innocent Americans have been murdered on U.S. soil by jihadists, most of whom were inspired by or acting under the direction of foreign terror groups, particularly the Islamic state.
Click here for a list of the major, verifiable radical Islamic terror attacks “successfully planned and executed” on U.S. soil since Obama first took office in 2009.