Here we go yet again: after every massacre comes the reassertion of the narrative. Natalia V. Navarro of Colorado Public Radio (CPR) reported Friday that “fear of religious-based backlash after the mass shooting in Boulder on Monday has forced the city’s Muslim community center to take security precautions, including temporarily suspending daily prayer services.” This is how this narrative, which we see after every jihad massacre, works. When Muslims murder infidels, Muslims are the victims.
CPR reported that Tracy Smith of the Islamic Center of Boulder said at a Boulder city council meeting: “The person who murdered 10 people at King Soopers in Boulder does not represent the Muslim community. He doesn’t represent Islam. He just happens to have a Muslim name.”
Well, maybe, but the idea that he didn’t act in the name of jihad and Islam is actually unproven as yet. Nonetheless, CPR runs with Tracy Smith’s statement as if it were fact, adding: “The alleged shooter’s name, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, has stirred anti-Muslim sentiments in the community, Smith said.”
His name is actually Ahmad Al Aliwi Al Issa, not Alissa. That’s how he himself wrote his name on his Facebook. The establishment media’s constant use of “Alissa” appears to be an attempt to obscure the shooter’s Muslim identity.
Also, note that no evidence is whatsoever is offered for these alleged “anti-Muslim sentiments” in Boulder.
The CPR story continues: “It’s unknown whether Alissa practices any religion and no evidence he practices Islam specifically.”
Is Navarro (or Smith, who may be CPR’s source for this claim) lying outright, or misinformed? On Al Issa’s now-deleted Facebook page, he posted a graphic containing this quotation: “‘O people, listen to me in earnest, worship Allah, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.’ The Last Sermon of Prophet Muhammad.”
Have you ever known of a non-Muslim or non-religious person to post quotes from Muhammad calling on people to worship Allah? Maybe Tracy Smith or Natalia V. Navarro could give us a few examples.
In the meantime, they’re busy shoring up the sagging establishment narrative that Muslims are always and in every case victims, no matter what. Smith claimed that Muslims in Boulder were living in fear after the shootings: “I have spoken to some who are afraid to leave the house. Others are changing up the past of their daily walks women who are fearful of wearing their hijabs in public and men with beards who feel they’re going to be targeted because of an increased threat of backlash.”
Meanwhile, Navarro couldn’t help but let a bit of reality peek through this “Islamophobia” wolf-crying: she reported that “the Islamic Center of Boulder has received an outpouring of support over the last week.”
Not threats. Not “backlash.” An outpouring of support. What happened to those “anti-Muslim sentiments” Boulder residents were supposedly displaying?
Yet the members of the Islamic Center and Colorado Public Radio make the story all about how afraid they are. They clearly know well how to play the victimhood card. Any measures taken in the wake of the jihad massacre to prevent Muslims from massacring infidels in the future is a sign of “collective punishment” and “Islamophobia.” Always and in every situation, Muslims are victims, to be appeased and accommodated in every possible way, and every counterterror measure, no matter how mild, is a step toward stigmatizing and criminalizing Muslim communities.
Even discussion of how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to recruit peaceful Muslims and justify violence must be shut down, as it supposedly endangers innocent Muslims “who feel they’re going to be targeted because of an increased threat of backlash.” Non-Muslims in the West fall for this propaganda initiative every time, which is why it keeps on being used.
Also, it is unclear from the CPR report whether Tracy Smith did not offer any evidence to support her claim that the shooting has “stirred anti-Muslim sentiments,” or if Navarro just left that evidence out of her report. In any case, in light of the many, many fake “Islamophobic” hate crimes, it would be good to see any. If there actually were any, the establishment media would be only too happy to report on it, so we should be seeing it any minute, no? Note that Smith refers not to any actual incidents, but to “women who are fearful of wearing their hijabs in public and men with beards who feel they’re going to be targeted.” But those are fears about something that they think might happen. There is no mention of any actual incidents of “backlash.”
Meanwhile, Ahmad Al Issa’s massacre fits the paradigm of random jihad massacres that the Islamic State (ISIS) has called for in the West for years. ISIS issued this call in September 2014: “So O muwahhid, do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be….If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be.”
Is Al Issa’s another attack carried out in answer to that call or others like it? In light of the fact that so very many people have so much riding on the Muslim victimhood narrative, we may never know for sure either way.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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