They just don’t get it

Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR rushed in his letter to the editor on March 31, 2006 to a list of programs and statements of condemnation which his organization has made in the recent past concerning terrorism and hate. He seems to either conveniently or carelessly miss the entire point of my March 30, 2006 column, Cancer in its Midst in the Washington Times. Let me make my points more direct. CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations) and other Muslim organizations gain their public notoriety as supposed Muslim responses to the darkness cast over our community from radical Islamists. Its response, however, is all about victimization and little else. And yet again, in Mr. Hooperﾒs response to my column he still could not get himself to answer these questions which I all but spelled out: 1- Will they directly help to dismantle and lead an organized effort against terrorist organizations and individuals by name beginning with Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, and HAMAS to name just a few of the radical Islamist enemies of America? Will they name and ideologically engage the extremism of the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia, the theocrats of Iran, Sudan, and the litany of other despots and theocrats in the Muslim world in their so far empty nameless condemnations of terrorism? 2- Will Mr. Hooper acknowledge that political Islam (Islamism) is the toxin which feeds the terrorism committed by radicalized Muslims? 3- If so, is it not the primary role of Muslim American organizations to lead the ideological war against radical Islamists? Non-Muslims can do nothing to deconstruct this poisonous ideology. Our fellow Americans living in fear for their security are looking for us to lead this fight. The credibility of Muslims is suffering deeply as a result of the complete denial of this responsibility by the likes of Mr. Hooper. 4- As a fellow Muslim, will Mr. Hooper join me in the call to my fellow co-religionists to fully and unequivocally separate the spiritual from the political? If not, then Mr. Hooper just doesnﾒt get it. Opinion polls continue to fall concerning the credibility of Muslims and their stance in this war against radical Islamists. Our community needs organizations with a new paradigm in this global conflict. Unless, leading Muslim organizations primarily and frontally engage ideological Islamism (political Islam), in an effort to cure the cancer from our midst, all of their other efforts will remain, pure and simply, self-serving and far from embodying the Golden Rule.