Only About One Out Of Four Muslims View ISIS Unfavorably

# 1 – Only About One Out Of Four Muslims View ISIS Unfavorably

A new poll by the Pew Research Center reveals significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world.  Surprisingly this fact has been under-reported throughout the world, even though it could potentially be posing great threat.  In 11 representative nation-states, up to 14 percent of the population has a favorable opinion of ISIS, and upwards of 62 percent “don’t know” whether or not they have a favorable opinion of the Islamist group.

In Pakistan, a nuclear weapons state, only 28 percent of the public view ISIS unfavorably.  By this overwhelming degree of either tacit support or tolerance for ISIS in the country, ISIS should be considered as a potential proxy nuclear weapons power via its linkages and support within Pakistan.  When broken down by ethnicity and religion, the results are equally troubling.  In Israel, 4 percent of its Arab population – which equates to more than 66,000 individuals – have a favorable view of ISIS.  For these 11 nation-states alone, the favorability ratings for ISIS reported by the Pew poll are indicative of at least 63 million ISIS supporters – and potentially upwards of 287 million if the undecided are included in the calculation.

Philip Bump, at the Washington Post, spins percentages as high as 14% as a positive sign that the world’s Muslims are “overwhelming opposed” to ISIS.  However when you are talking about 1.2 billion people, just 1% is frighteningly high.  When you are talking about accepting refugees or immigrants from countries, where anywhere from 1% to 14% of millions of Muslims view ISIS favorably, that is a massive threat to our security.

When broken down by ethnicity and religion, the results are equally troubling.  In Israel, 4 percent of its Arab population – which equates to more than 66,000 individuals – has a favorable view of ISIS.  For Gaza and the West Bank, 5 and 8 percent, respectively, also hold a favorable view of ISIS.  In Nigeria the ISIS favorability rating among the Muslim population soars to 20 percent.  Another 12 percent of Muslims in Malaysia take a similar positive view of ISIS.

Substantial support for ISIS also exists among Malaysia’s Buddhist population, where more than one third of respondents either view ISIS favorably or do not have a negative or positive opinion.

Non-negligible proportions of Christians in Burkina Faso (5 percent) and Nigeria (7 percent) have a favorable view of ISIS, with ISIS unfavorability ratings surprisingly low at just 66 and 71 percent, respectively, among this cohort.

# 2 – American Muslims Are Far More Likely To Commit A Terrorist Attack…

There are Muslims everywhere, in most countries (except Japan?) and many of these countries have experienced various degrees of threat.  Many of us are living with them right next door, down the street, at our kids’ schools and shopping at the neighborhood grocery store.  Most of them are nice, bright, focused individuals and families; but some fall into the category of the Tsarnaevs, Sayed Farook, Nidal Hasan, Alton Nolan, etc.  What much of the mainstream media forgets to acknowledged, is that since 9/11, there have been 89 Americans killed by Muslims in 47 terror attacks and over 1200 more injured.  Still, only one Muslim has been killed in a “revenge” terror attack.

Muslims account for only about 1 percent of the U.S. population but account for about half of terrorist attacks since 9/11.  That means Muslims in the United States are about 5,000 percent more likely to commit terrorist attacks than non-Muslims.”

Statistics such as these are creating the awareness of the growing threat that Radical Islam could put upon the United States.  Since the September 11 attacks, analysts and public officials have expressed growing concern about the potential of Muslim citizens and residents of the United States to plot attacks within the country’s borders—a phenomenon sometimes referred to as “homegrown” terrorism.  To assess this apparent threat, it is necessary to examine what is known about the willingness and capacity of Muslim Americans to execute deadly attacks in the United States.  Three conditions, either alone or together, could contribute to an increasing threat of homegrown terrorism.

The first concerns what is known about the radicalization of Muslim Americans, and whether a surge in arrests in 2009 indicates a growing trend in Muslim American terrorism?  The second relates to the capacity of aspiring militants to avoid detection as they prepare attacks.  The third depends on the skills of aspiring terrorists and, therefore, their capacities to execute increasingly sophisticated attacks.  The analysis should be generally reassuring to those, concerned about Muslim homegrown terrorism.  On both analytical and empirical grounds, there is not a significant basis for anticipating that Muslim Americans are increasingly motivated or capable of successfully engaging in lethal terrorist attacks in the United States.

# 3 – One Out Of Every Seven American Muslims Support Suicide Bombings

As such, it’s worth remembering a survey of Muslims from several years ago which found widespread support for suicide terrorism, even among Muslims in Western countries.

In 2007, Pew Research Center took an in depth study of American Muslims and how they compared with the rest of the world. Notably, the survey asked respondents whether it was ever acceptable to make suicide attacks on civilians for the purposes of defending Islam. Pew found the vast majority of American Muslims were opposed to suicide attacks. Unfortunately, there was still a substantial group of Muslims who disagreed, and that group was disproportionately clustered among those most likely to be involved in terrorist plots.

Among American Muslims, 8 percent told Pew that suicide attacks on civilians in defense of Islam were often or sometimes justified. Another 5 percent said such attacks were rarely justified, and 78 percent said they never were. In other words, 13 percent of American Muslims, nearly one in seven, conceded that suicide bombings against civilians could be morally acceptable. With about 3 million Muslims in the United States, even 13 percent amounts to nearly 400,000 people.

The numbers were even more worrisome elsewhere. Among French Muslims, 35 percent said suicide attacks could potentially be acceptable, as did 24 percent of British Muslims. In the Islamic world itself, the numbers were far higher. In Jordan, Nigeria, and Egypt, a majority of respondents were willing to admit suicide attacks to defend Islam could be justified.

Support for suicide bombings was particularly high among young Muslims. In the U.S. a full 26 percent of Muslims aged 18-29 admitted they could see justifications for suicide bombing, nearly triple the rate of older Muslims. Similar degrees of extremism were visible in the other Western countries Pew interviewed Muslims in. In France, an astonishing 42 percent of young Muslims said suicide attacks could be justified.

# 4 - Only One Out Of Five American Muslims Agrees That Violence Against Civilians is Justified.

Have you heard that Islam is a peaceful religion because most Muslims live peacefully and only a “tiny minority of extremists” practice violence? That’s like saying that White supremacy must be perfectly fine since only a tiny minority of racists ever hurt anyone. Neither does what you may hear explain why religious violence is largely endemic to Islam and the tremendous persecution of religious minorities in Muslim countries.

Polls convey what Muslims say about their attitudes toward terrorism, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 attacks, violence in defense of Islam, Sharia, honor killings, and matters concerning assimilation in Western society. The results are all the more astonishing because most of the polls were conducted by organizations with an obvious interest in “discovering” agreeable statistics that downplay any cause for concern.

The writers and editors at the Washington Post state that only 81% of American Muslims say that violence against civilians is never justified, as “U.S. Muslims almost never consider suicide bombings to be justified.” There are millions of Muslims in this country. This means that hundreds of thousands of American Muslims are in some way comfortable with the idea of using violence against innocent civilians.

Some Muslims believe in Sharia, which condones the use of violence for anything that gets in the way of achieving their goals. Muslims seem to think that Sharia should be used in a domestic sphere to settle family or property disputes, and most countries surveyed showed much less support for severe punishment like cutting off the hands of thieves or executing those who convert from Islam to another faith. Muslims in South Asian countries showed the greatest support for corporal punishment and execution.

A majority of those surveyed also said “honor killings” are not justified. Exceptions were found in Afghanistan and Iraq where execution of women who allegedly shamed their families by engaging in premarital sex or adultery was condoned.

#5 - Seventy-one Americans have been arrested for ISIS-related activities since March 2014, and they come from varied backgrounds and ethnicities and identify broad motivations for supporting ISIS, according to a report from the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

One of those charged for ISIS-related activities is a Mexican-American convert from Houston. Another is a former Air Force officer from Brooklyn. The youngest arrested was 15 years old.

The report, “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa,” attempts to explain why these individuals became radicalized by analyzing every ISIS-related court case from the last 21 months.

Program Director Lorenzo Vidino and Deputy Director Seamus Hughes presented the findings to the public. The report describes ISIS’s use of social media to attract American recruits.

Fifty-six individuals were arrested for ISIS-related activities this year alone—a record for terrorism arrests since 9/11, the report says.

The report also elucidates the power of social media and how ISIS has attracted American recruits to its radical ideologies online.

Researchers described ISIS online communities as echo chambers, where participants reinforce each other’s beliefs. Some ISIS Twitter accounts function as “nodes” or leading voices that generate content for networks. “Amplifiers” retweet and reshare material from other popular ISIS members, and “shout-out accounts” keep the online community connected by creating new accounts if users are suspended.

But Dr. Vidino added that radicalization isn’t limited to the online world. In Minneapolis, close-knit neighborhoods of people connected by ethnic and community ties have seen extremism take hold. Authorities also caught a small group from a Bosnian community in St. Louis sending money to Syrian fighters.

This year alone, ISIS created media in nine different languages and produced almost 1,800 propaganda videos, 14,523 graphics and 50 songs, Mr. Fernandez said. The ISIS image has to be cracked, and community leaders can add their voices to introduce new counter narratives to the organization’s brand.

“They need to be seen as and, actually be, losers. That is the single most powerful thing that can be done to take some of the air out of their message,” he said.

“Even with our smaller Muslim populations, we have trouble keeping track”, the FIB has said. The FBI is reported to have nearly 1000 active probes into ISIS supporters in the United States. Of those, 48 suspects are under intensive, 24/7 surveillance, straining the agency’s capacity.”

#6 - I am sure you are not that surprised, or are you? A considerable portion of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is based on the assumption that Islam in the U.S. will be different: that Muslims here believe differently from those elsewhere, and do not accept the doctrines of violence against and subjugation of unbelievers that has characterized Islam throughout its history. But on what is that assumption based? Nothing but wishful thinking. And future generations of non-Muslims could pay the price.

If you did a little independent research you will quickly find that America’s most respected Islamic leaders and scholars also want theocracy, not democracy, and even advocate trading the Constitution for the Quran. These aren’t fringe players. These are the top officials representing the Muslim establishment in America today. Hopefully none of them ever runs for president.

Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of both the Fiqh Council of North America, which dispenses Islamic rulings, and the North American Islamic Trust, which owns most of the mosques in the U.S.A stated, “As Muslims, we should participate in the system to safeguard our interests and try to bring gradual change, (but) we must not forget that Allah’s rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction.”

Omar Ahmad, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the top Muslim lobby group in Washington was quoted as saying, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper last year said, “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”

Imam Siraj Wahhaj, director of the Muslim Alliance in North America stated that, “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

#7 -  Pew asked Muslims in 39 countries whether they want Sharia to be law of the land where they live. The percentage who answered yes is very, very high in some countries: 99 percent say yes in Afghanistan, 91 percent in Iraq, 84 percent in Pakistan. On the low end, just 12 percent of Muslims in Turkey say they want Sharia to be the law of the land; the number is 10 percent in Kazakhstan.

According to a separate report from the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, the U.S. awarded 11,000 green cards to immigrants from Afghanistan from 2009 to 2013, 83,000 to Iraqis in the same time period, and 83,000 to Pakistanis. The U.S. awarded 22,000 green cards to Turks in that time, and 7,000 to Khazaks.”

Muslims are migrating to the United States in scores, with 117,423 in 2013 alone coming from nations dominated by the Islam faith onto American soil, according to a Breitbart analysis of federal data.

The news outlet looked at State Department and Homeland Security records to conclude: “Twelve years after the September 11th hijackers were invited into the country on temporary visas, the U.S. decided to admit 280,276 migrants from Muslim countries within a single fiscal year.”

Add to that President Obama’s hopes to bring in another 10,000 from Syria, and the numbers really rack up. As Breitbart noted: “This means that every year the U.S. admits a number of Muslim migrants larger in size than the entire population of Des Moines, Iowa; Lincoln, Nebraska; or Dayton, Ohio.”

Sifting through the figures further, Breitbart found the United States has “permanently resettled 1.5 million Muslim immigrants” between 2001 and 2013, and now these legal immigrants “will be given automatic work permits, welfare access and the ability to become voting citizens.”

The Center for Immigration Studies recently reported the fastest-growing area of immigration to the United States is the Middle East. Breitbart reported: “Arabic is now the most common language spoken by refugees,” and more than 91 percent of refugees from the Middle Eastern region are food-stamp recipients.

Among that panel’s findings: “A college student [was] voluntarily admitted from Somalia ‘who later applied for and received U.S. citizenship, attempted to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon,’” and “An immigrant [was] voluntarily admitted from Sudan ‘who applied for an received U.S. citizenship tried to join ISIS and wage jihad on its behalf after having been recruited online,’” Breitbart reported.

WND has reported dozens of additional incidents in which Muslim refugees have run afoul of the law, including a Somali tax driver in northern Virginia who was named the FBI’s newest “most wanted terrorist” in January after he allegedly served as a recruiter for al-Shabab and al-Qaida and fled to Somalia before he could be arrested. Also, six Somali men from refugee families living in Minnesota were arrested in April after they repeatedly tried to board planes for Turkey where they planned to join ISIS. WND reported last month about an Uzbek refugee resettled in Boise, Idaho, who was convicted of trying to assemble bombs in his apartment to blow up U.S. military installations.

In fact, 72 cases in just the last year have been documented by the Senate immigration committee headed by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, in which likely Muslim immigrants have been arrested for terrorist activity.