Most are happy to live in the U.S.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center has found that 78 percent of U.S. Muslims believe the use of suicide bombings against civilian targets to defend Islam is never justified. Five percent said it is "rarely" justified, 7 percent said it is "sometimes" justified, and 1 percent said it is "often" justified. Nine percent said they did not know or declined to answer.

By comparison, Muslims in France, Spain and Britain were almost twice as likely to say suicide bombing is sometimes or often justified, and public acceptance of suicide bombing is even higher in some countries with large Muslim populations, such as Nigeria, Jordan and Egypt.
The Muslim population in the U.S. is about 2.35 million. Some two-thirds of the adult Muslim population in this country are immigrants, hut seem to have a generally positive view of U.S. society.

Most call their communities good or excellent places to live, and most report that a large portion of their closest friends are non-Muslims. They are slightly more satisfied than the general public with the state of the nation, and believe that Muslims coming to the U.S. should assimilate into American culture rather than remain distinct. A larger percentage of American Muslims believe that people who work hard and want to get ahead in the United States can do so than do the general public (71% to 64%).

"What emerges is the great success of the Muslim-American population in its socioeconomic assimilation," said Amaney Jamal, a senior advisor on the poll and an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University. "Given that for the past few years they’ve been dealing with the backlash from 9/11, these numbers are extremely impressive."

Amajority (53%) say it is more difficult to be a Muslim in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, and most think the government "singles out" Muslims for surveillance and monitoring.

Relatively few Muslim Americans believe the war on terror is a sincere effort to reduce terrorism, and many doubt that Arabs were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. A minority (40%) of Muslim Americans say groups of Arabs carried out those attacks.

Eighty-percent of U.S. Muslims lean toward the Democrat Party, though most are socially conservative.

When compared with Muslim minorities in Western Europe, American Muslims are much better off. There, Muslims are said to be frustrated with the lack of economic opportunities and are socially isolated. interestingly, however, about the same percentage of Muslim women in the U.S. and Western Europe believe that women are better off there than in Muslim countries. The U.S. and France lead with 62%; Britain is second with 58%; Germany and France trail with
50% and 46% respectively.

The survey found what it called "pockets of sympathy for extremism," especially among American blacks and young Muslims, said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

Native-born African-American Muslims, who represent about 20 percent of the total Muslim population, are its most disillusioned segment, the report shows.

According to Kohut, one of the poll’s most striking findings is that America’s black Muslims are considerably more likely than immigrant Muslims to express support for al-Qaida. Nine percent hold a favorable view of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization, while 36 percent hold a very unfavorable view. Among foreign-born Muslims, 3 percent voiced a favorable view of al-Qaida and 63 percent took a "very unfavorable" position.

The poll also found that Muslims under 30 are more religious than their elders, and are more inclined to support suicide bombings. They are also more likely to identify themselves as Muslims first, then Americans.

PEW polled 1,050 Muslim adults. Its findings had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.

COMMENTARY

The PEW report seems to indicate that the threat of Muslim extremism in the U.S. is low. On the face of it, this is good news. Certainly many Muslims in the U.S. are good neighbors and citizens. They do not take the violent aspects of the Koran as literally as do the extremists.

However, a closer look at these numbers tells us that there is a genuine threat from a sizeable portion of the Muslim population in this country, especially among black and young Muslims.
Percentages tell only one part of the story. Lets run some numbers.

Nine percent of American-horn black Muslims favor al-Qaida, America’s sworn enemy. If 20 percent of American Muslims fall into this group, and 9 percent of this group view al-Qaida favorably, this means that, numerically, some 42,000 potential terrorists are in our midst. If only one percent act on their feelings, that means that 420 could strap a bomb on themselves and wreak havoc in our society.

This may seem a small number, but only ten bombings, closely timed and spread throughout the nation, could bring commerce to a halt and result in martial law being implemented, Such action could easily embolden others to take up arms and implement a terrorist campaign throughout the nation. Not only Muslims pose a threat, but there are many leftists who hate this country.

This 420 possible terrorists among black Muslims is a very conservative estimate. If only 63% of foreign-born Muslims take a "very unfavorable" position on al-Qaida, some 37 percent, or over a half- million, are neutral toward al-Qaida at best. This may explain why there is so little opposition publicly voiced among U.S. Muslims toward islamic extremism throughout the world. Majorities in any group are generally silent. If a large percentage of Muslims are favorable toward terrorism, it is easy to believe that the majority are cowed into silence. They may very likely fear the more extremist elements among them.

As believers in Jesus we are compelled to love all men, even our enemies. As dire as these things appear, let us not n~lect the great commandment of love, or allow ourselves to live in fear. (Source: MEDIA SPOTLIGHT - VOL.30- NO.2 - SUMMER 2007 - PAGE 9

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