If there were any doubt about what the Times is about, consider what Mr. Powell wrote this week in a column about a sparsely attended demonstration by “a few dozen Muslim New Yorkers” who had gathered to protest the NYPD’s use of the film. Noting that no politicians or elected were present, he opined, without any corroboration, that “[s]uch isolation no doubt counts as a success for the deep-pocketed backers of the video, ‘The Third Jihad,’ who apparently hope to tar Muslim leaders as ‘radical Islamists’ and so render them politically toxic.”
It will be recalled that several months ago Congressman Peter King was savaged by the Times as well as some of the same Islamic organizations over his hearings designed to pursue the question of the role of mosques in the recruitment of home grown fundamentalist terrorists. Just a few weeks ago there was a similar targeting of the NYPD for its connection to a CIA anti-terror monitoring effort.
As we see it, the jihad film controversy is just the latest episode in a calculated attempt to delegitimize efforts to deal with a serious threat the larger Muslim community recognizes but is unwilling to address. We acknowledge that an unwelcome broad focus and somewhat unconventional methods are uncomfortable, but something has to be done and such efforts cannot simply be summarily dismissed.
We wonder why the Times – which seems to have no problem casting vague aspersions on possible Jewish and pro-Israel connections with parochial agendas as driving anti-terrorist efforts – ignores the recurrent involvement of several Muslim organizations out front in opposition to those efforts.