Venal and appalling as he’s shown himself to be on so many occasions, Donald Trump is not 100% wrong when he says that some in the U.S.-based Muslim community have been reluctant to report alarming activity and/or intentions. This suspicion is obviously backed up by reports that Omar Mateen‘s widow, Noor Salman, knew of his intention to cause harm (one report says she accompanied him when he bought firearms used in last weekend’s massacre) and tried to talk him out of this.
Federal prosecutors have reportedly convened a grand jury to investigate her and possibly charge her as an accessory to 49 counts of murder and 53 counts of attempted murder as well as with failure to notify law enforcement about the pending terrorist attack and lying to federal agents.
Posted on 3.23.16: “Trump’s broad-brush thinking and sloppy sentence construction implies that many if not most Muslims may be guilty of looking the other way, which is an undoubtedly wrong and unwise conclusion, but there seems to be little doubt that a tiny sliver of persons within any average Muslim expat community support ISIS, and that these persons are almost certainly keeping quiet about what they may have seen or heard about the activities or whereabouts of the ‘wrong’ ones. It follows that friends and family of these persons would probably also keep mum.
“To say there are considerable feelings of tribal loyalty among Muslims living in non-Muslim countries is not an unreasonable assumption. Not every expression of concern or caution about the doctrine of Islam is necessarily synonymous with bigotry and Islamophobia.
“As I reminded a few months ago, ‘An 11.17.15 Pew poll states that a small but noteworthy percentage of Muslims in nations with significant Muslim populations support ISIS.’
“4% of the Arab population in Israel, or roughly 42,000 souls, have a favorable view of that fiendish organization. 5% and 8% of Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank are also pro-ISIS. Positive ISIS numbers among Nigerian Muslims is around 20%, and 12% of Malaysian Muslims feel the same way. And you know that a certain percentage of the ‘don’t know’ crowd are also pro-ISIS — they just don’t want to lay their cards on the table.
“The bottom line is that a very small percentage of Muslims in any region support ISIS, and that the possibility of a Muslim community harboring or shielding ISIS militants is not, at the very least, a crazy racist notion.”
“Remember the summary that ‘Waking Up’ author Sam Harris offered last year on Real Time with Bill Maher, which is that 20% of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are composed of Islamists, who hold with the Jihadists in some ways but don’t believe in terrorism. Within this 20% you have your actual nutty Jihadists, who comprise a micro-thin slice of the pie.
“Beyond those two groups you have conservative Muslims, many of whom apparently believe in subjugating women, persecuting gays, committing honor killings of women who’ve been raped and even murdering Muslims who abandon the faith.”
