The far-left, Soros-backed group Hope Not Hate has made the inflammatory claim that the election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president has propelled anti-Muslim hatred into the mainstream.
In a new report from their ‘Counter-Jihad’ Monitoring Unit, the group claims that the election of Trump to the White House has sent “anti-Muslim hatred … mainstream”, as “self-styled ‘counter-jihadists’ have an ally in the White House”. They note: “a similar process of mainstreaming is happening in Europe, too.”
Speaking to the Evening Standard, report author Joe Mulhall suggested that Mr. Trump’s claim during the election campaign that there are no-go areas for police in Europe demonstrated “the influence of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories on his thinking”.
He said: “This idea there’s an invasion to Islamify Europe has no truth to it. But it creates an anti-Muslim atmosphere in places like Britain too.
“Now it’s not just small, irrelevant blogs saying this in some corner of the Internet.
“It’s a journey from obscure notions which then came out on to the streets with things like the EDL and have now made their way into the White House.”
In fact, the existence of no-go areas for police has been demonstrated both in the UK and in Europe.
This is not the first time that Hope Not Hate has taken aim at those aiming to counter the actions of Islamic radicals in the West.
In December 2015, the group released a 130-page “exclusive” report detailing what it claims were the “anti-Muslim” connections in the UK and U.S. The report shocked many readers, however, by including Muslim reformers who oppose sharia and radicalism among its targets.
Their accusations prompted a leading Muslim reformist and former U.S. naval officer, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, to brand the group “bigots”, adding: “Their Orwellian approach is actually doing takfir” – that is, declaring a Muslim to be an apostate, kafir, or non-believer.
“They’re basically doing the same thing as [Osama] Bin Laden and [Abu Bakr] Baghdadi [the leader] of ISIS… and the Saudi government.”
The latest report admits there is “absolutely nothing wrong with opposing jihadism or even criticising Islam”, but it goes on to define a “counter-jihadist” as someone who holds “a specific type of conspiratorial anti-Muslim prejudice”.
It asserts “Most ‘counter-jihadists’ believe that secular, liberal society is aiding Islam through mass immigration into Europe and policies of multiculturalism, which they believe squash any criticism of Islam. This conspiratorial notion of conscious and planned invasion is one of the key ideas that marks ‘counter-jihadism’ out from more general anti-Muslim sentiment.”
It adds: “A mythical, usually Christian, western culture and identity is said [by counter-jihadists] to be facing extinction at the hands of Islamic invasion.”