AFDI Geller Fellow Nonie Darwish explains why Muslims always see themselves as victims, even when they're committing acts of violence:
Islamic logic never ceases to astound most Americans. In these sensitive times, during which America is still mourning the San Bernardino massacre, Muslim groups from day one were seeking apologies from America for fear of a backlash.
It appears that the more frequently barbarism is exhibited by Islamic terrorists, the more offended Muslims become. They seem to be more offended over Americans being appalled by violent Islamic terrorism than they are by Muslim terrorists. Even the attorneys representing the families of the San Bernardino terrorists never apologized or comforted Americans for what their family members did, but instead stood before the microphone complaining about Islamophobia and judging Islam.
The Islamic complaining industry has shamelessly not stopped since the terror attack. Its leaders are producing videos and appearing on TV shows blaming American Islamophobes and Donald Trump for putting the American people first. Covered-up Muslim women appeared on various TV channels complaining of America’s reaction to the terror and holding Islam and Muslims responsible. No empathy with America or the victims of Islamic terror: to these women, it is all about "what are they going to tell their kids about Islam under attack on TV.”
As a former Muslim myself, I would like to ask these complaining Muslims in America: Do you really think that the source of your troubles comes from the West, or from the actions of fellow Muslims and the never ending parade of Islamic terror all over the world? Instead of sympathizing with the real victims of terror, Muslims in America are playing the victimhood card without being victimized. In fact, it is America that took in hundreds of thousands of Muslims who were escaping life under Islamic terror all over the Muslim world, but instead of getting a thank you, they are being told that America is not good or sensitive enough to protect Muslim feelings from the truth.
Muslims in the West are simply demanding that we protect the reputation of Islam and respect their feelings, even if Islam is preaching the destruction of America. The so-called moderate Muslims in America would rather not be offended by the truth and by honest reporting of the havoc Islamic terror has caused in America and the world. Islamic society has always catered to protecting Muslims’ feelings from the truth about jihad violence and its victims, so why can’t America abide by this simple sharia law that forbids Muslims to take any responsibility for jihadist terror and change, or even, dare we say, repent?
I lived the first 30 years of my life in the Muslim world, where Islamic terrorism and jihad was never reported as an act of aggression, and where the outside world was always to blame for it. Islamic terror was always covered up to protect Muslim reputation and pride, and was always blamed on things like past injustice, the Jews, the evil colonialist West or anyone and anything other than Muslims. Today, Muslims in America, at least their leadership, are doing the same thing; they don’t want to be bothered with reality and have no shame about accusing America of being insensitive.
What moderate Muslims in America want is to bring the culture of denial, that I and they have grown up in, to America. They seem to having succeeded in convincing many in the media and academia that the true villain here is America for not being tolerant enough toward Islamic terrorism.
For 1400 years, Islam excelled in convincing Muslims that only their feelings count. That was done mainly through indoctrination, lying and telling Muslims they are entitled to special divine privileges under Sharia. But in this day and age, and with the immigration of Muslims to the West, Muslims suddenly discovered that sharia protection and their special privileges, especially not be offended by reality, no longer apply.
Muslims now have to make a choice between abiding by the fundamental principle of Jihad in Islam, or rejecting jihad altogether. The definition of jihad is: To war with non-Muslims, Jews, Christians and Pagans, in order to establish Islam. It is defined as war, and not as a defensive war, as some Muslims claim today. But under international law, doing jihad is a crime. So what do Muslims do to stay loyal to the requirements of Islam? The only way to explain away jihad is to have a cause against oppression by the nations Muslims intend to invade. Muslims must never again admit to the West that jihad means an offensive war.
During the Barbary wars, and as recently as some two hundred years ago, Muslim leaders openly admitted to the West that their religion gave them the right to terrorize and enslave non-Muslims. In March 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy, ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. When they inquired "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury," the Muslim ambassador replied: "It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.”
After the United Nations was established and Muslim countries signed documents stating that no country should violate the sovereignty of another, Muslims had to improvise to continue doing their jihad. Until today, not one Islamic entity or leader declared the end of jihad, even after signing international agreements. Meanwhile, the world, which suffered from centuries of jihad, never asked Muslims to outlaw it.
In the present, Muslims are caught in an existential dilemma between abiding by international law or their religious duty to do jihad, which would be a fatal blow for the survival of Islam itself. But Sharia has always given Muslims a leeway around anything and everything if it's for the purpose of jihad; it is clearly stated in Islamic books that Muslims are obliged to lie, deceit, kill and slander if it is for a higher purpose required by Islam, i.e. jihad.
Muslims chose the later: to eat their cake and have it too, to appear to be abiding by international law while continuing the jihad. Thus they positioned themselves as the victims of the powerful West. It must have come instinctively and without any trouble for Muslim leaders who themselves lie to their followers, to convince the world that Islamic worldwide terrorism and all the bloody wars on Muslim borders are all defensive war. Unfortunately, many in the West believed them.
Islamic education doubled down on spreading the notion that Muslims have been the eternal victims of the West, when in fact the opposite was the truth. I, for one, lived 30 years of my life in Egypt, fully convinced that the West and Israel want to destroy us poor Muslims. It was not until 9/11 that I realized the magnitude and intensity of Islamic lies and indoctrination.
And now, almost 15 years after 9/11, Muslims in America are still using the victim card to justify jihad.
AFDI Geller Fellow Nonie Darwish is the author “The Devil We Don’t Know” and president of “Former Muslims United,” a program of the American Freedom Defense Initiative.