On Thursday, Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Peter King (R-NY) will open his investigation into the American Muslim community. The hearings, ostensibly about America’s terrorist threats, are narrowly targeted at Muslims. King has refused to broaden the investigation into other well-documented terrorist groups, like the “Sovereign Citizen” movement. In fact, King has promoted his hearings in the media with inflammatory rhetoric, declaring there are “too many mosques” in the country and that Muslims aren’t American when it comes to war.
King said he originally planned to invite only Muslims to testify about the threat of American Muslim radicalism. To hear more about this strategy, we spoke to “radical Islamophobe” activist Brigitte Gabriel at the 2011 CPAC conference. Gabriel, profiled in the New York Times today, has pushed a campaign of excluding Muslims from public office, blocking the construction of mosques, and legislating bans on communities practicing Sharia. In February, Gabriel’s anti-Muslim group “ACT! For America” co-sponsored a hate rally captured on video by CAIR.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/08/peter-king-islamophobia-muslim-messenger/