Once again, Donald Trump has raised a critical issue that everybody else was afraid to touch.  One of the reasons all other politicians were afraid to raise it is because of the obloquy that the "leadership" – the CAIRs – of the Muslim community in the U.S. would heap on anybody who did so.

But let's look at that for a second.  Nobody can deny that the Muslim community has a problem with terrorism or, more properly, with violence against civilians as a military tactic in a war by ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood on the United States.  ISIS urges the ummah – the Muslim collective – to engage in individual attacks on what we regard as innocent targets.  Our authorities treat this as terrorism and act as if its perpetrators must be unbalanced in some way – the tiresome search for a motive after each atrocity.  ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood regard these attacks as war and their perpetrators as soldiers in that war, carrying out a noble mission.  They are the devout, not the unbalanced.

George Bush did a historical disservice by declaring Islam to be a "religion of peace."  That definition has become a laughingstock.  But that characterization has still done great damage to the vocabulary of this struggle, because Islam is nothing if not a "religion of war."  The Koran is virtually a manual for demoralizing enemies through atrocity – the cutting off of heads and limbs and license for even greater depravity.  It is a text for aggression, the purpose of which is the subjugation of the world.

We are invited to conclude that the mass of Muslims are "moderates."  It is not clear what that means in terms (a) of the violent passages, but even more (b) of the violent intent of the Koran.  In what sense are "moderate Muslims" good Muslims?  If they are not active warriors, what is their relationship to jihad, Mohammed's highest calling for the faithful, (higher than prayer)?

What is the relationship of moderate Muslims with sharia?  Have they denounced it in favor of the Constitution?  Is there a Muslim doctrine that regards the exhortations of Mohammed in the Koran to the faithful to be now invalid, overtaken by history?  If this is so, we have not been introduced to this body of thought.

But let's assume there is an interpretation of the Koran that is peaceable.  Assuming there is such an interpretation and that it is held by "most" Muslims, then wouldn't one expect a surge of support for Trump's temporary ban on Muslim immigration because of Muslim shame at their religion being hijacked as a cover for attacks on innocent civilians?  Isn't that the logic of the situation if, as Obama says, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood are hijacking a peaceful religion?  Aren't moderate Muslims appalled at that hijacking and ashamed of the carnage caused in their name?

Isn't the logic of the situation that the moderate Muslim community would come out four-square for Trump's effort to wring out those hijackers from the mass of peaceful Muslims in which they are hiding?

The Egyptian people, assisted by the army, threw out the Muslim Brotherhood after it had gained power.  Egyptians knew what they were in for, and they rebelled.  No other population in modern times has thrown out a totalitarian regime without its losing a war except in the case of the long, gruesome decline of the Soviet Union.  The Germans, for instance, did not throw out the Nazis.

Isn't the Egyptian action the model that, say, the moderate Muslim community in the U.S. would want to be associated with – ridding itself of the criminals who have hijacked a noble religion?  And wouldn't they therefore be publicly supportive Donald Trump's effort?