Arab News runs an op-ed that is, essentially unobjectionable. It’s on how Pres. Obama needs to mend fences with the American Muslim community too, not just global Islam.

What’s troubling is that the piece is by Delinda C. Hanley, a news editor for The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) and no attribution is cited for her. In fact, the piece carries an Arab News byline. That’s a problem for me. The WRMEA, in my book, is a fringe publication that delves too deeply and too often into conspiracy theories. It is anti-Israeli to an extent that often approaches anti-Semitism. It unfortunately recalls the days when Saudi media would cheerfully republish stories by people like David Duke that excoriated ‘Israel’ when actually meaning ‘Jews’ and disregard the utter racist nature of Duke’s white supremacist program.

The story makes an awful lot of assumptions of innocence on the part of Muslims and guilt on the part of government. Some of the assumptions are simple assertions, as her extolling the virtues of CAIR. CAIR, again in my opinion, has mastered the tools of victimology without actually offering substantive argument. If something bad happens that involves an American Muslim, CAIR is there, leaping to support before ascertaining facts.

The article does point out that there have been problems with overzealous prosecutors in the US as well as the fact that there is a great deal of mistrust of Muslims. The mistrust is not entirely mindless, though it can of course be exaggerated. In ignoring these elements, the arguments made in the article only tell certain people what they want to hear and think about themselves. That’s not journalism, it’s cheerleading.

Abuses against Muslims in US
Delinda C. Hanley | Arab News

The day US President Barack Obama reached out to Muslims around the world through his speech at the Turkish Parliament, saying the United States “is not and will never be at war with Islam,” Muslim Americans described what looked like a war on their community in the US. The American Muslim Taskforce (AMT) on Civil Rights and Elections, a coalition of major national Islamic organizations, discussed their concerns at a briefing at the National Press Club on April 6.

“This is a very important message to the American people, to the West and to the Muslim world in general,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “We appreciate Obama’s efforts to bring peace and justice to the Muslim world and American Muslims are not only willing but they are ready to help,” he said.

Obama needs to improve Washington’s relations with six to seven million American Muslims — relations badly damaged in the previous administration’s “war on terror” and by its invasion of two Muslim countries.
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