T he anniversary of 9/11 should be a time for solemn reflection, remembrance and contemplation.
Sadly, an event held Thursday by Christians United for Israel instead featured the Islamophobic and reductionist views of an extremist.
Gary Bauer, a former Reagan administration official, spoke at the event and warned of an imminent terrorist attack in America of the same scale as 9/11.
“They love death more than we love life, and those men are plotting to bring us 9/11,” he said.
There are undoubtedly people around the world who mean the United States harm, but those people don’t simply love death. Terrorists are created by circumstances arising from the decades-long collision of ideologies and foreign policies.
By carelessly generalizing about Muslims and terror, Bauer risks engendering a paranoid fear of Islam that precludes reasoned debate on national security issues.
Bauer’s addendum that not all Muslims want to “kill the infidel” did not help his case. Saying that is akin to saying not all Jewish people are obsessed with money; they are phrases based in stereotypes that demonize complex, diverse groups of people.
CUFI, which promotes itself as a group that fights anti-Semitism, should be careful about inviting speakers who promote prejudice in the future. Anti-Semitism is built on the same kind of dangerous stereotyping that Bauer displayed toward Muslims in his speech.
