Did “Islamophobia” Beat Romney?

Did “Islamophobia” Beat
Romney?
by Robert Spencer

Since the election the Hamas-linked Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic supremacists, along with
their Leftist allies, have been crowing that the voters rejected “Islamophobia.”
They claim that the defeats of Allen West, Joe Walsh, and Adam Hasner, and even
of Mitt Romney himself indicate that the American electorate has decisively
rejected candidates who sound the alarm about the threat of jihad and Islamic
supremacism, and that there is no such threat, and now we are all moving
happily into a glorious multicultural future. But actually, the resounding
defeat of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party say nothing at all about the
public’s view of candidates who speak the truth about Islam and jihad, because
this was not and never has been part of the Republican Party’s approach.

The unreality began right after 9/11, when President George
W. Bush went to a mosque and proclaimed that Islam was a religion of peace. The
Left was already beginning to articulate the line that any resistance to jihad
and Islamic supremacism constituted “hatred,” “bigotry” and “Islamophobia,” and
instead of pushing back and pointing out that the 9/11 hijackers and other
jihadists used the texts and teachings of Islam to justify their actions and
make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and challenging Muslim groups in the U.S.
and elsewhere to deal honestly on that point, Bush capitulated. When he stood
in a Washington mosque on September 17, 2001 in the company of Nihad Awad of
Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacists, he was signaling that his
administration would not scrutinize Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S. in
light of 9/11, no matter how unsavory their ties, or call on them to do
anything genuine or effective to reform Islam. He would pursue the “war on
terror” – our first-ever war against a tactic – without dealing with the
motives and goals of the enemy.

And the Republican Party, avid to defend an increasingly
unpopular president, fell into line. Leading media conservatives and
almost-conservatives such as Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Mark Levin refused
to deal with Islamic issues, no matter how germane they were to understanding
what the foes of the United States were up to and how they could be fought most
effectively. When they did deal with “terrorism”-related topics, they generally
opted to feature Christian Arabs such as Brigitte Gabriel or “moderate Muslims”
such as Zuhdi Jasser, thereby implicitly accepting the Left’s claim that there
was something “racist” about most post-9/11 criticism of Islam and jihad, and that only those of the same ethnicity as Muslims could legitimately speak about jihad.

Thus when some on the Right, notably David Horowitz, challenged
the numerous and manifest Muslim Brotherhood ties of anti-tax crusader Grover
Norquist, Party regulars declined to join the fray: Norquist was too powerful,
too well-connected, and too valuable for his anti-tax work. Most probably did
not understand the implications of Norquist’s Muslim ties in any case, having
been assured by Bush and so many others for so long that Islam was peaceful,
Muslims were moderate (except for a tiny minority of extremists), and that
alliance with those moderates was essential. If Norquist was working with Muslims,
they must be moderate – right?

And so the media, the Democrat Party, and the Republican
Party all agreed: Islam was a Religion of Peace, moderates must be cultivated,
and Muslim individuals and groups with Muslim Brotherhood ties and ties to
other Islamic supremacist groups counted as “moderate” as long as they weren’t
blowing anything up. The truth about the roots of jihad violence and Islamic
supremacism in Islamic texts, and the implications of that, were only rarely discussed
on Fox News or in other “conservative” news outlets, and when they were, it was
usually by accident: when a guest on Hannity or O’Reilly or some other show
would venture into territory that the host hadn’t anticipated.

All this soon enough bore fruit. Michelle Malkin, after delving
for a time into questions of how Islamic doctrine influenced contemporary
jihadists at her popular Hot Air site, jettisoned all such discussions in the
summer of 2008 – probably not coincidentally, just at the time that she was
angling for more air time, and even a show of her own, on Fox. Later, Ann
Coulter enthusiastically praised Chris Christie, without hesitating for a
moment over the many signs of how deeply compromised he is to Brotherhood
entities, or even giving any indication that she need do so for any reason. Party
establishment and media figures didn’t even know to look askance. Likewise Romney raised no eyebrows when he insisted that “jihadism”
had nothing to do with Islam – after all, no other Republican presidential
candidate was saying anything significantly stronger.

And so what of the defeats of West, Walsh, and Hasner? The
reason why the Republican establishment embraced none of them wholeheartedly
and instead held them at arm’s length was precisely because they spoke the
truth about jihad and Islam – or more of it than anyone in the Republican
establishment was comfortable with. Meanwhile, Islamic supremacist groups
targeted them specifically for defeat, and those on their own side were not
willing or able to defend them from charges of “Islamophobia” and “hate.”

For eleven years now, the Republican Party has failed to
offer a clear or coherent response to the jihad threat, or a clear or coherent
alternative to the Democrat policy of appeasement and accommodation. It is just
one more reason why the Stupid Party richly deserves the place on the scrap
heap of history toward which it is racing so rapidly.

 Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad
Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam
(and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His
latest book is Did Muhammad Exist?.