U.S. Congressman Peter King is a despicable extremist, and Islamist extremists only help him further antagonize anti-Muslim sentiment. But let me start from the beginning. King is the Chairman of the United States House Homeland Security Committee. He called for a Senate Hearing session last week entitled “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response.” King's committee unleashed a ‘tsunami' of controversy within the United States. The usual news sources that I rely on have provided me with dozens of commentaries on the committee's deliberations, perhaps even hundreds of such commentaries. Nevertheless, the issue was a lesser priority for the Arab media, even though it is Islam and Muslims that are the focus of these hearing sessions. King, by virtue of his fanaticism, condemned himself even before he began, when he said, “There is a real threat to the country from the Muslim community and the only way to get to the bottom of it is to investigate what is happening.” Naturally, the hearing is unnecessary, as long as King has already decided that the Muslim community is a threat to the United States, before he even interviewed any of the witnesses who spoke before his committee. I had criticized King several times in this column, when the Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives. Today, I shall revisit his past. He is a Catholic, who endorsed the terrorism of the Irish Republican Party (IRA) against British ‘occupation' of Northern Ireland, to the extent that the British government refused to participate in St. Patrick Day's celebration in New York City in 1985, because King was in charge, and after the UK government accused him of supporting terrorism. The I.R.A is responsible for the killing of 3500 people over 30 years of conflict, including 600 civilians. Thus, King has one trait in common with the other terrorist Muammar Gaddafi, in that they both support this militant separatist movement with repeated attacks on civilian targets. Despite this, King has stated that the violence pursued by the IRA is a justified or inevitable response to British repression, that it is a centuries-long struggle for independence, and that the British government is a ‘killing machine'. But it is the Israeli government that is a killing machine. What's more, it is a fascist criminal government that demolishes homes, expels their inhabitants, and murders women and children. But King supports Israel, making him a de facto accomplice in its crimes against the Palestinians. While he has supported the bombings carried out by the IRA in cities and considered them to be “legitimate force”, he has opposed that Palestinians defend themselves, in their own country, against criminals and thieves. Many in the United States accused King of pursuing a new form of “McCarthyism”, in reference to Senator McCarthy's investigations into communism in the 1950s during the Cold War. 'Witch Hunt' was also repeatedly mentioned in other articles, in reference to the futile search for evil witches to burn them at the stake in the nineteenth century. In fact, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson said that the hearing is in violation of the Constitution, which prohibits religious discrimination. The several articles that criticized King carried the following titles: -America's Anti-Muslim Jihadists on the March Again - Flailing after Muslims - Drawing U.S. crowds with anti-Islam message - Peter King's hearing of a long ignoble tradition - Stoking irrational fears about Islam - To Peter King: Muslim radicalization inquiry brings out the radicals Then there were those among the Likudnik extremists, the enemies of Islam and Muslims, who backed King and defended him. Some of the titles of their articles that I read include: - King Hysteria grips the left - The Jihad on Rep. King before his jihad hearings can even convene - The Muslim brotherhood's cover-up - Resurrecting the Caliphate I even read an article that carried this title “Onward Christian Warriors” inciting American Christians against Islam and Muslims. American Likudniks, it seems, want Americans to be killed at Israel's altar, just like they did in Iraq and elsewhere. But I shall return to this issue in detail in a separate article. The worst thing to me when it comes to the King committee hearings and the ensuing reactions to them, was that hundreds of commentators in the media across the board have missed the most important point in the whole issue: The cause of Islamic radicalism, and terrorist attacks such as those perpetrated on 11/9/2001, which I categorically condemn. The cause of course is Israel, and the full American support afforded to it. Any other explanation is nonsense and is a lie. Muslim extremists who murder other Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Arab capitals and cities, or murder Christians and burn churches, are the primary backers of King and his ilk, and are the strongest argument King has against us. Extremists, whether they are like King and the Likudniks or like al-Qaeda, are the raison d'etre of one another. [email protected]
