Jessica Stern on Muslims in America
Jessica Stern, a well-known scholar on terrorism and the author of Terror in the Name of God and, more recently, Denial: A Memoir of Terror, has just published this enlightening article in The National Interest.
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Jessica Stern, a well-known scholar on terrorism and the author of Terror in the Name of God and, more recently, Denial: A Memoir of Terror, has just published this enlightening article in The National Interest. Here's an abstract:
Congressman Peter King has had quite a lot to say about Muslims in America—much of it seemingly inflammatory. The congressman is right about the growing threat of violent Muslim extremism. The problem is he mischaracterizes the source. American mosques are not at the heart of the threat any more than is the Muslim community. Just as there is a difference between those who oppose abortion on religious grounds and those who target and kill abortion providers, there is a difference between the Muslim community and Muslim terrorists. But it is also wrong to claim, as some have suggested, that because they are greater in number and commit more crimes, white-supremacist and antigovernment groups pose more of a threat to national security than do Muslim extremists. Indeed, it is precisely because the threat of violent Muslim extremism is so serious that Mr. King’s rhetoric is so dangerous.Here is a link to a related op-ed in today's Boston Globe.
Larkin Reynolds is an associate at a D.C. law firm and was a legal fellow at Brookings from 2010 to 2011. Larkin holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she served as a founding editor of the Harvard National Security Journal and interned with the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. She also has a B.A. in international relations from New York University.
