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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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April 4, 2016
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Deconstructing
Nathan Lean's "Islamophobia Industry"
by Andrew E. Harrod
Special to IPT News
April 4, 2016
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 "Islamophobia...is
sort of like the ocean. It is working, it is churning, it is ebbing, it is
flowing, even when we are asleep. There are larger systems of power and
structures of power in place," warns Georgetown University researcher Nathan Lean. Such
conspiracy-mongering typifies the thesis of his book, The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right
Manufactures Fear of Muslims, of an inherently innocuous Islam
slandered by the American military-industrial complex and Zionist Jews.
Lean is a perfect fit for his employer, the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for
Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). Amid ACMCU's exclusion of opposing views, Lean rails against a vague
"Islamophobia" as "discrimination against
Muslims" but never defines what remains acceptable "[r]ational
criticism of Islam or Muslims."
Lean's "Islamophobia" radar is especially sensitive when
Muslims are the voices raising concern. He castigates former radical Maajid Nawaz, as a tool of
bigoted neoconservatives. He has also called former Wall Street Journal
reporter Asra Nomani an "anti-Muslim hate enabler" and
ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali someone "dangerously close to
advocating genocide."
Lean's oceanographic observations occurred during a discussion of Islam
and American military conflicts Feb. 23 at Washington, D.C.'s Rumi
Forum, an entity in the empire of the shadowy Turkish Islamist Fethullah Gülen. "Islamophobia has really long
been connected to American foreign policy and America's military engagement
with Muslim enemies real or perceived," he said. "America's first
military engagement as a newly formed republic was with a Muslim
enemy," the Barbary Pirates, and "narratives emerge from the
Barbary Wars about Muslims and Islam...very similar to a lot of kinds of
things we hear today."
At both the Rumi Forum and a subsequent March 10 presentation at St. Mark's Episcopal Church
on Capitol Hill, Lean elaborated on a "foreign enemy domestic, threat
phenomenon." At St. Marks he presented "Islamophobia" as
"necessary to soften military intervention" in terms of gaining
American public support, and stated that "since 1980 we've invaded,
bombed or occupied 14 Muslim majority countries." He thereby ignores
Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams writing as diplomats in
London in a March 28, 1786, letter (available in the National Archives) of a
Barbary representative justifying piracy of American ships with jihad.
Lean's presentation emphasized the "influence of fervently Zionist
groups and individuals" in pushing Islamophobia, an accusation
"very controversial and provocative in many quarters...really
taboo."
"Israel," he said, "relies on Western Islamophobist
pretenses" that "some lives are more important than others."
This serves in "leaving the occupying state's colonization
untouched" along with Israel's "historical crimes committed
against the Palestinians, such as ethnic cleansing, collective punishment
and apartheid."
Lean accused groups like the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) of portraying Muslims as "even subhuman," saying it
"uses its annual gab fest to stoke anti-Muslim narratives."
Lean's discussion of the "Islamophobia"-funding Shillman
Foundation prompted one St. Mark's listener to note that the foundation's
founder, Robert Shillman, "is a huge donor to Northeastern
University," her alma mater. There Shillman Hall, with its Shillman statue, along with a
Raytheon amphitheater, symbolizes "bombs and Zionist donors,"
apparently for her two equivalent evils. The "pernicious feature"
of such "Islamophobic Zionist, hateful donors" is "totally normalized
on campus," she said. Lean told her she was "right on the
money."
By contrast, Lean trivialized Islamic terrorism and other human rights
violations as resulting from individual misdeeds, not theological doctrine,
implying that all religious groups have equal problems with miscreants.
"We can certainly talk about violent Muslims, no one should have a
problem with that, because there are violent Muslims, there are violent
Christians, there are violent Jews, there are others," he said. Criticizing
a government emphasis on Islamic extremists, he mentioned "white guys
that look like me that come from the South that go into movie theaters with
automatic weapons and blow away 40 people."
Lean rejects terms like "radical Islam," saying it
"reinforces the idea that there is something inherently violent about
Islam." Words like sharia have "been usurped by people that would
want to advance some form of prejudice against Muslims," he said.
Similarly, he tells audiences that jihad primarily represents a "pious
struggle to do good," contrary to the all-too violent understanding of
this term by former jihadists and the Palestinian Authority, to say nothing of Hamas or the Islamic State.
Lean similarly rejects the term "moderate Muslims" and asks
"who decides what the good Muslims are...and what the bad Muslims are?
What are their criteria?" That is ironic considering Lean's attacks on
Nawaz, Nomani and other Muslims who advocate for reform.
He has no problem dismissing Muslim physician Zuhdi Jasser as an
"anti-Muslim activist" because he opposes Islamist groups like
the Muslim Brotherhood with their theocratic agenda. He even refused to answer Nomani's question at the Rumi
Forum and answered with insults when she challenged Lean's personal attacks
against those he believes unjustly attack Muslims.
Like Nomani, "there are an awful lot of people on the left side of
the political spectrum that are very problematic when it comes to
Islamophobia," Lean said at St. Marks. "Bill Maher said a lot
of things that I like, and I enjoy laughing at his show, but quite frankly
I haven't been able to watch it recently," he said of the comedian's questioning of Islamic doctrine. "He's such
a virulently anti-Muslim fellow."
Yet now and then even Lean cannot ignore reality of legitimate doubts
with respect to Islam. A questioner described her anxiety about seeing a
Muslim woman on the D.C. Metro completely covered by a niqab except for her
eyes. "I don't think that you are prejudiced for having those
feelings," he responded. "We live in the society where we for the
most part expect to interact with one another on a face to face level."
Lean's "Islamophobia" sophistry may please his radical friends
but has little relation to a world with far more serious concerns about
Islam than veil-impaired facial contact. "Islamophobia" hardly
influenced, for example, America's 1991 liberation of Kuwait, 1980s arming
of Afghans against the Soviets, 1990s rescue of Balkan Muslims from Serbian
genocide, and various 21st century overthrows of dictatorship.
Lean's thesis also offers no explanation for "Islamophobia" in
Europe, where countries have far less military involvement than the United
States, including neutral countries like Switzerland, noted for its minaret
ban. Lean's alternative imputation of "Islamophobia" to
Zionists raises old prejudicial stereotypes of often wealthy Jews conniving
to suborn others, as seen in the 2007 book The Israel Lobby and Charles Lindbergh's isolationist speeches.
Lean's catch-all accusation of "Islamophobia" simply limits
vital public debates over Islam in academia and beyond. Yet the Islamic
State's genocide against Christians, documented in a report released the very day of Lean's St. Mark's
appearance, shows that jihadist threats are hardly a Jewish invention and
appropriate for minimization.
 Following last
month's terror attacks in Brussels, Lean's initial statement lamented anticipated media coverage.
He said nothing about the attack or the terrorists' motivation. Even as ISIS' statement claimed credit for the attack made repeated
references to God supposedly enabling it, the charlatan Lean remains
preoccupied with "Islamophobia."
Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a PhD
from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George
Washington University Law School.
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