WASHINGTON: The White House is pushing a message of religious tolerance ahead of this week's congressional hearing on radicalism, which has sparked protests on grounds it unfairly singles out Muslims as potential terrorists. President Barack Obama sent his deputy national security adviser, Denis McDonough, Sunday to a Washington-area mosque known for its cooperation with the FBI and its rejection of Al-Qaeda ideology. “Being religious is never un-American. Being religious is quintessentially American,” McDonough said. The speech came just four days before the hearing in the House of Representatives, which has already given rise to protests on grounds it is unfairly targeting Muslims. In New York's Times Square on Sunday, about 300 people gathered to speak out against the planned congressional hearing, criticizing it as xenophobic and saying that singling out Muslims, rather than extremists, is unfair and divides the nation. Speaking to an interfaith forum of Muslims, Christians, Jews and other faiths, McDonough, the president's point-man on countering violent extremism, was clear: “We're all Americans.” Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, which is holding the hearings, thinks the Muslim community can and should do more to help law enforcement thwart the attacks. “I don't believe there is sufficient cooperation” by American Muslims with law enforcement, King said Sunday on CNN. “Certainly my dealings with the police in New York and FBI and others say they do not believe they get the same – they do not give the level of cooperation that they need.”
