Qanta Ahmed: As a Muslim American Trump admirer, I say to Joy Reid and Ilhan Omar: Shame on you!

Two Trump-hating, far-left radical women made news this week as they got into an argument about how to best insult President Trump. As a Muslim woman observing Islam, and someone who admires the president as a true friend of Muslims around the world and an outstanding leader of our country, I find their comments to be ignorant, insulting and intellectually dishonest.

The argument began Monday night when MSNBC host Joy Reid — who devotes her nightly show “The ReidOut” to denouncing Trump and all he does — said the president has radicalized his supporters in the same way that “Muslims act.”

"Leaders, let's say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence, including on their own bodies, in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy," Reid said.

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"We in the U.S. media describe that as they are radicalizing those people — particularly when they're radicalizing young people,” Reid added. “That's how we talk about the way Muslims act. When you see what Donald Trump is doing, is that any different from what we describe as radicalizing people?"

In reaction to that ludicrously ignorant commentary, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim originally from Somalia, sharply criticized Reid and demanded an apology.

“Honestly, this kinda of casual Islamophobia is hurtful and dangerous,” Omar, D-Minn., tweeted. “We deserve better and an apology for the painful moment for so many Muslims around our country should be forthcoming.”

Reid didn’t apologize, but said on her show Wednesday that her comments were "not exactly the most artful way of asking that question."

OK, so what’s this all about? And why should you care?

Islamism is a 20th-century political totalitarian ideology very much inspired by Marxism.

We all know the stereotypes about Muslims: Radical extremists and terrorists. Haters of the West in general, America in particular, and especially the Jewish state of Israel. Fundamentalists who reject modernity and oppress women.

While the stereotype is accurate for a small percentage of the world’s 1.9 billion Muslims, it’s far from accurate for most of us. I’m a proud U.S. citizen, reject Islamism, support the state of Israel, and as physician I am an obvious example of an educated woman who embraces science and the modern world and believes in equal rights for my gender.   

I am committed to combatting Islamism — the notorious imposter of Islam that is actually an extremist political ideology that embraces radical Islamic fundamentalism. At the same time, I reject the left’s obsession, objectification and infantilization of all Muslims — whether by Reid or Omar.

True to form, Omar raised the specter of Islamophobia — the fear and hostility toward Muslims — in her attack on Reid. That’s a favorite silencer used by Islamists and Islamist sympathizers to simultaneously silence discourse and cry victimhood.

Omar and Reid both engage in deeply flawed thinking, illustrating how Islamism engages with the left in their notorious Red-Green Alliance that renders Muslims as monolithic, voiceless and blind followers of leftism.

The pair are also utterly wrong on President Trump’s purported exploitation of Muslims. To the contrary, he has been our champion.

I have traveled throughout the Arab Muslim world for 20 years and frequently during the Trump presidency and I have talked with ordinary Iraqis, Kurds, Yazidis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Emiratis, Saudis and others. In these conversations, my co-religionists have told me that far from being a radicalizer of Muslims, President Trump is a galvanizer of Muslims.

The president has been a powerful bulwark against Islamism and a supporter of millions of vulnerable Muslims around the world.

Muslims who Trump has backed include those surviving the rampage of terrorists groups such as ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other radical Islamists. Far from being an “objectifier” of Muslims, President Trump has been a powerful advocate for Muslims by combating radical Islam throughout the greater Middle East.

Trump has taken a refreshing rapprochement with the Sunni Arab world after eight years of marginalization by the Obama administration that favored the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

The U.S. president received an astonishing reception at the 2017 Riyadh Summit by leaders of 55 Muslim-majority nations during his welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, hosted by King Salman. And Trump has intensified pressure on Shiite Islamist Iran, which waging a covert proxy war with several Sunni Arab states.

In addition, President Trump ordered the remarkably bold and timely assassination of Iranian spymaster and legendary commander of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Qassem Soleimani, the second-most powerful figure in Islamist Iran.

Trump also proposed the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal that offered over $50 billion in investments into the economy of a nascent Palestinian state. And he recently forged the Abraham Accords to lead to normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates — the first such peace agreement between Israel and an Arab nation in 26 years.

In truth, President Trump can be seen only as a devoted supporter of those Muslims fighting fundamentalist Islamism everywhere — namely Muslims who fight radicalization, not court it. For this Trump has earned our accolades.

Reid claims that President Trump is a puppet-master inciting Muslims like a fundamentalist Mullah — much as we find among Islamist ideologues in Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and elsewhere. But this is absurd and couldn’t be further from the truth.

Reid reveals she has no insight as to the diversity, complexity and ideological differences among my fellow Muslims across the Muslim-majority world and here in America. She has rendered us monolithic in every way — a demeaning and contemptible view.

As to the accusation of Islamophobia, Ilhan Omar once again reveals her Islamist credentials. Islamophobia is a 20th century construct that seeks to act as censor of all dialogue and examination of matters relating to Muslims and Islam, including by Muslims observing Islam and those brave critics of Islam’s political imposter — Islamism.

Islamism is a 20th-century political totalitarian ideology very much inspired by Marxism.

Omar — like all Islamist sympathizers — seeks to silence any who dare criticize, examine or analyze Islam, Muslims, our institutions, our leaders, or any aspect of our societies.

Was Reid’s utter stupidity offensive? Perhaps. But more than offensive, Reid’s remarks were revelatory of her own rank ignorance. But were Reid’s remarks an assault on Islam? Hardly.

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Stretching Reid’s remarks to anything close to anti-Muslim xenophobia (which is despicable in a liberal secular democracy where all minorities are protected and celebrated), Reid could be accused of xenophobia against Muslims, but this is not Islamophobia.

Islamists and their allies (including the left) recall that Omar met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2017 when she was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Erdogan is the modern godfather of the Muslim Brotherhood — the mothership of Islamism.

Islamists and their sympathizers wield Islamophobia as a political and judicial shield against criticism and scrutiny of ideological Islamism. Omar seeks to silence not only the stupidity of Reid’s remarks, but any rights Reid might have to examine Muslims.

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This does not excuse the dumb and dumber exchange we were all subjected to. But it does reveal in the left’s alliance with Islamism — whether Muslim Islamist sympathizers or a recognized far-left political commentator — how it demeans and devalues Muslims everywhere.

To Reid and Omar I say: shame on you both!

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