Are the congressional hearings on radicalization among American Muslims an instance of McCarthyism, or is the opposition to them political correctness run amok?
Jewish groups may disagree on why, but there appears to be wide consensus that the congressional hearings led by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, are off on the wrong foot.
The differences are over whether hearings, which began March 10, are needed at all -- and if they are, what they should address.
The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee agree that examining Muslim extremism is a proper issue for Congress, and AJC went a step further by saying that lawmakers should not bend to political pressures.
An AJC official, Yehudit Barsky, director of the organization’s division on the Middle East and International Terrorism, submitted written testimony to the hearings, which officially are called "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community's Response.”
In her testimony, Barsky said it was “essential that we all tread carefully so as to avoid rhetoric that smacks of stereotyping members of a particular faith and similarly avoid actions that amount to discrimination against, much less persecution of, members of a faith group based on their identity or beliefs, as opposed to their actions.”
In a statement, the ADL echoed that sentiment.
"Homegrown Muslim extremists pose a real threat to the United States, but the issue is one that may be difficult to explore seriously in a hearing that has engendered an unfortunate atmosphere of blame and suspicion of the broader American Muslim community," the ADL said. "We need to be careful not to single out an entire community for special scrutiny or suspicion."
The Reform movement called on congressional Democrats to expand the hearings to encompass all forms of terrorism.
The National Jewish Democratic Council and J Street said the hearings are indelibly tainted.
Critics of the hearings say King seeks to smear American Muslims. They note that in the lead-up to the hearings, King said there are "too many mosques" in America. King also has suggested that Muslim leaders do not cooperate with authorities and that the vast majority of clerics are radicalized.
The Republican Jewish Coalition said King was fulfilling his proper mission.
"The hearings have met with strong resistance from the left, but they are critically needed," the RJC said in its newsletter.
King was unrepentant as the hearings began last week.
“To combat this threat, moderate leadership must emerge from the Muslim American community,” he said.
Yet King failed to invite to the hearings major Muslim American groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to defend themselves against charges that they coddle terrorist sympathizers. The council criticized the King hearings as tainting all American Muslims.
But the hearings also did not invite those who maintain that much if not all of the Islamic world has been radicalized.
If anything, the hearings provided an opportunity to hear a range of voices, including both those who praised the American Muslim community’s stance against radicalism and parents of American Muslims lured into terrorism. There were also a number of Muslims who have criticized insularism among Muslim Americans.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, testified before the committee. So did Leroy Baca, the Los Angeles County sheriff who praised the Council on American-Islamic Relations as cooperative.
In her testimony, Barsky, who listed recent planned attacks by Muslim extremists on U.S. Jewish targets, cautioned against viewing the hearings as an assault on all Muslims.
“Some Muslim organizations, joined by well-meaning supporters, have reacted to the idea of discussing the threat posed by Islamic extremist terrorists by raising the specter of McCarthyism,” Barsky said. “They and others have demanded that any discussion or investigation of this national security threat be broadened to include all extremists in all communities.
"Logic and experience, however, dictate that any meaningful inquiry focus on particular organizations and extremists that currently pose a national security threat.”
The Reform movement said the failure to broaden the inquiry unfairly singled out Muslims.
"A wide-ranging exploration of radicalism writ-large is necessary, and we would welcome it," Mark Pelavin, the associate director of the movement's Religious Action Center, said in testimony submitted to the committee. "But today's hearing is not that exploration. It is a narrow, myopic investigation into the American Muslim community which unfairly targets one group of citizens in congressional proceedings."
Pelavin joined a Capitol Hill protest that included representatives of Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim bodies and described the hearings as “anti-Muslim.” Also appearing at that event were a prominent Conservative rabbi, Jack Moline, who has advised the Obama White House, and Marc Schneier, an Orthodox rabbi and co-founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
Steve Emerson, who heads the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a research organization that has consulted with a number of pro-Israel groups, said the concerns were overblown.
“Those involved in terrorism are a tiny sliver of the overall Muslim American population,” he wrote in a New York Daily News Op-Ed. “But one ought to be able to focus on a very real problem -- homegrown terrorism fueled by Muslim extremism -- without being accused of painting the entire U.S. Muslim population with a broad brush.”
Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), perhaps the most passionately pro-Israel lawmaker in Congress, said in a statement that King’s tone mitigated against a sober assessment of domestic Muslim extremism.
“Instead of singling out this particular community for investigation, our focus should remain on the many sources of terrorism and violence that threaten our nation and its residents,” she said, noting her concerns about the “tone and substance” of the hearings.
“I ask,” she said, “if this hearing were focused on the Jewish community, Japanese community or the African-American community, or any other community, would we not be justifiably outraged?”