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September 20, 2010
'Islamaphobia' another political tool
If Legal Insurrection isn't among your bookmarked sites, it ought to be because Professor Jacobson also provides interesting material.
Today he shows that the Arab world is in agreement with those who think the Cordoba Mosque ought not to be built at ground zero and by a vast majority see Americans as tolerant.
Fouad Ajami reports on an opinion survey taken by a leading Arab electronic daily newspaper, regarding the Cordoba mosque and Islamic center to be located at or near (depending on your perspective) Ground Zero.
Keep in mind that domestic public opinion against the location is widely denigrated in the mainstream media, left-wing blogosphere, and academia, as necessarily reflecting Islamophobia.
But the survey of Arab opinion cited by Ajami shows that many, if not most, people in the Arab world agree that the location selection was unwise. As reported in The Wall Street Journal (h/t HotAir)(emphasis mine):
The truth is that the trajectory of Islam in America (and Europe for that matter) is at variance with the play of things in Islam's main habitat. A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, gave a decided edge to those who objected to the building of this mosque-58% saw it as a project of folly.
Elaph was at it again in the aftermath of Pastor Terry Jones's threat to burn copies of the Quran: It queried its readers as to whether America was a "tolerant" or a "bigoted" society. The split was 63% to 37% in favor of those who accepted the good faith and pluralism of this country.So does that make 58% of the Arab world "Islamophobic"?
Something is going on here which was obvious even before this survey. The constant agitation over Islamophobia, like the constant use of the race card, is just another political tool to demonize people who happen to disagree.