Predictably, the reaction to criticism of Southern Methodist University professor Omar Suleiman, who was invited by Democrats to deliver the convocation last week to Congress, based on his record of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and misogynistic commentary has been to accuse critics of “Islamophobia.” Moreover, Suleiman’s defenders seized on a tweet from Republican NY Rep. Lee Zeldin and the coverage from mostly conservative websites to dismiss critics as “right-wingers.”
For instance, Luther College professor and “Islamophobia expert” Todd Green called it an “insidious racist strategy” on the part of Republicans “to cast all Muslims as anti-Semitic in an effort to instrumentalize Islamophobia for votes and political leverage.” Meanwhile, Suleiman, in a Dallas News op-ed, bemoaned the “hate [that] seeks to silence, intimidate, and bully American Muslim leaders,” while insisting he’s not an anti-Semite.
What none of them did, however, was to address the substance of the criticism. Instead, they carefully avoided examining Suleiman’s past commentary, except to deny that his anti-Zionism has anything to do with anti-Semitism. His offensive rhetoric on gays and women was simply ignored.
As we noted yesterday, all of this could have been avoided if the politicians who courted Suleiman had done a simple internet search. It’s not as if this was the first time this has happened. As it is, Islamist academics are “hiding” in plain sight.
