US lawmakers vote to tackle global Islamophobia, but will Israel be investigated? – Middle East Monitor

Judging by this week’s shut vote on combating Islamophobia, and sensational revelations by a significant US Muslim group, President Joe Biden’s try to maneuver the US into a brand new interval of historical past and exit the post-9/11 period whereas remaining, nearly, the only real superpower, will face a few of its largest challenges. Cleansing up the xenophobic present of anti-Muslim racism that was unleashed with the “Battle on Terror” and investigating the collaboration of Israel with the worldwide Islamophobia trade are solely a number of the hills to climb.

Biden got here with the pledge to finish the US’ “perpetually wars” and reorientate US international coverage from its two-decade-long obsessive deal with countering terrorism to making ready the US for the challenges of the twenty-first century. These embody main the world in combating local weather change, revitalising democracy and making ready the US and its allies for an everlasting competitors with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia.

But, regardless of the recalibration of US priorities going into the long run, the infrastructure and the racist discourse that enabled a two-decade-long seemingly unending warfare within the Center East stays in place. The primary problem for Biden is not going to be reorientating the overblown military-industrial advanced, which sits on the centre of the Battle on Terror infrastructure. Weapons producers can, and can, discover new enemies and proceed to reap even higher income.

Different dysfunctional options of the 9/11 period will probably be a lot tougher to unravel, particularly the acceleration of authoritarian tendencies the world over the place the specter of “Muslim terrorism” is exploited to justify gross human rights abuse and subvert democracy. Evidently, fearmongering about terrorism and conspiracy theories about “creeping sharia” have taken deep roots in tradition and society, not simply within the US, but in addition the world over.

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The likes of Chinese language President Xi Jinping have adopted the US Battle on Terror template, as have many regimes within the Center East. Recall how Obama tried to shut Guantánamo Bay on the outset of his presidency. He deliberate to launch just a few Uyghur detainees to indicate that the US authorities was keen to do its half. Obama’s proposal was met with stiff opposition, leading to restrictions that prevented the jail’s closure. Republican politicians led the cost in opposition to Obama. They launched a joint declaration that claimed that the Uyghurs: “Have radical spiritual views which make it tough for them to assimilate into our inhabitants.” Their assertion sounded exactly like propaganda deployed by the Chinese language Communist Celebration relating to its actions in Xinjiang.

Biden’s try to seemingly exchange the Battle on Terror structure that has animated the US for therefore lengthy with a distinct generational decade lengthy mission is as soon as once more being opposed by Republicans. They’ve proven that, greater than anybody, Republican members of Congress are the strongest opponents of efforts to handle the xenophobic currents which have fuelled anti-Muslim hostility prior to now 20 years with their unanimous vote in opposition to a brand new invoice to fight Islamophobia.

Titled Combating Worldwide Islamophobia Act, the US Home of Representatives voted this week to help a invoice to fight anti-Muslim racism. Measures featured within the invoice name for the State Division to determine an workplace headed by a particular envoy who will publish an annual report recording situations of Islamophobia, together with violence in opposition to and harassment of Muslims and vandalism of their mosques, faculties and cemeteries worldwide.

Apart from recording situations of anti-Muslim racism, the stories will spotlight propaganda efforts by state and non-state media: “To advertise racial hatred or incite acts of violence in opposition to Muslim individuals.” An instance of this was the anti-Muslim disinformation marketing campaign that surged in India in the course of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The report will even incorporate the documentation of any situations of pressured labour, re-education or the presence of focus camps, reminiscent of these focusing on the Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang area.

With lawmakers voting alongside social gathering traces – 219 to 212 – the invoice handed, however solely simply, highlighting as soon as once more the deep wedge within the US relating to Islam and Muslims. If progressives had insisted on a measure to take away Republican Lauren Boebert from her committee assignments for making Islamophobic remarks, it won’t have handed. The consultant from Colorado brought on outrage together with her remark that Ilhan Omar, who is among the first Muslim girls elected to Congress, could possibly be a terrorist.

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Republicans nonetheless strongly opposed the invoice in the course of the flooring debate. After shedding the vote, some took their frustration out on social media in typical Islamophobic trend. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican consultant from Georgia, repeated her Islamophobic assaults on the invoice’s writer Omar in a prolonged Twitter thread, falsely describing it as Omar’s: “Newest effort to power your complete world to undergo Islam.” Greene is certainly one of a number of Republican lawmakers which have referred to Omar as a member of the “Jihad squad”.

The proof of the pudding in Biden’s international coverage reset will probably be if the workplace put in to fight worldwide Islamophobia is allowed to hold out its position impartially. It’s straightforward to see how the work of such an workplace could also be directed at exposing the racism and human rights abuse of the US’ enemies in a future standoff with China and offering the rhetorical justification for bellicose US coverage in opposition to the Chinese language Communist Celebration.

A report on combating international Islamophobia is not going to solely must report on China, India and Myanmar, but in addition the US’ closest allies – together with Israel. Regardless of a wealth of proof, little or no consideration has been paid to the overlap between the rise of Islamophobia globally and far-right Zionist teams. The thought of Muslims because the “different”, as terrorists amongst our midst, has created a political and cultural cleavage, one from which the State of Israel has benefited tremendously.

Sensational proof of this overlap was revealed this week as Congress voted on the Islamophobia invoice. Distinguished Muslim rights group, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), introduced that it had uncovered and disrupted a hate group’s years-long effort to infiltrate and spy on mosques and Muslim-American organisations.

CAIR stated that it was made conscious of this final yr when it realized that a number of people concerned in Muslim group actions have been performing as spies for anti-Muslim hate group, the Investigative Venture on Terrorism (IPT), led by Steven Emerson. The Southern Poverty Legislation Centre has described Emerson as an anti-Muslim activist.

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Yesterday, CAIR supplied proof of the connection between IPT’s work on Islamophobia and the State of Israel. The pattern of proof is “in depth”, with some 100 information, emails and paperwork indicating that Emerson was working in collaboration with the Israeli authorities.

In a single occasion, the Israeli authorities asks Emerson about an American scholar school group and whether or not it had any connections to Hamas. Proof supplied by CAIR exhibits that Emerson had been in Tel-Aviv with Israeli officers and that he had despatched an electronic mail to employees about an pressing request from the workplace of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The analysis undertaken by IPT on behalf of Israel tried to attach Hamas with the terrorist organisation Boko Haram. Emerson forwarded the request to his employees, notifying them that the request from Israel was pressing.

For CAIR, the incident has raised a number of questions: “What was the anti-Muslim group doing with all the knowledge it gathered from spying on Muslim organisations? Was it offering the knowledge to international governments and, in that case, what was the international authorities doing with that data?”

These are undoubtedly severe questions that any workplace put in by the US to analyze the unfold of world Islamophobia might want to examine. The query, nevertheless, stays: Is the US able to prioritising the rights and freedoms of its Muslim residents over the curiosity of its so-called closest ally, who has been caught red-handed collaborating with a significant participant within the international Islamophobia trade?

The views expressed on this article belong to the writer and don’t essentially replicate the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.