When a percentage of Muslims support civilian casualties, it’s called an internal threat and terrorism. When an even higher percentage of Americans support intentionally attacking civilians, what do we call it?

The past week, a highly publicized Pew Research Center poll was released on the beliefs and political perceptions of Muslim Americans. The survey concluded, that Muslim-Americans are “largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.” Yet on prominent mainstream media outlets, the survey was slanted as “Supporting Terror?” on a CNN crawl, on CBS News online, the headline incorrectly stated that 26% OF YOUNG U.S. MUSLIMS OK BOMBS, and in USA Today, more scare tactics: POLL: 1 IN 4 YOUNGER U.S. MUSLIMS SUPPORT SUICIDE BOMBINGS.

Yet the poll actually showed only 8 percent of US Muslims said suicide bombing can be justified with 83 percent saying suicide bombing can never be justified. Says Hussein Ibish, “I can almost guarantee that the overwhelming majority who were asked the suicide-bombing question were thinking about Palestine—not Iraq or America. They’re not willing to say it’s never OK because they think Palestinians have no other options. They’re wrong, but that’s what they think. It’s exactly the same kind of statistic you’d get if you asked young Israelis about torture, demolition of villages, assassinations—they’d say yes because they know the Israelis have done it but loathe to say it’s wrong. I’m sure, knowing the Muslim community, that if you resolved the occupation in Palestine, that number would go very close to zero.”

Most interestingly, on an international level Americans poll worst than every Muslim country in regards to attacks against civilians. From the The myth of Muslim support for terror in the Christian Science Monitor:

Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria…

The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland’s prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that “bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians” are “never justified,” while 24 percent believe these attacks are “often or sometimes justified.”…

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world’s most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are “never justified”; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent… Our surveys show that not only do Muslims reject terrorism as much if not more than Americans, but even those who are sympathetic to radical ideology can be won over by positive American actions that promote goodwill and offer real hope.

46 percent of Americans think attacks intentionally aimed at civilians are never justified, compared to numbers ranging in the 70’s and 80’s for the majority of Muslim countries. Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers, and what does this say about the perceptions of Muslims versus the perceptions of ourselves?

Sources & References

Sample of poll results:

Europhobia, Islamaphobia and American Muslims Surveyed, http://wsibrusselsblog.org/?p=136

Muslims in America, http://atlanticreview.org/archives/678-Muslims-in-America.html

The myth of Muslim support for terror by Kenneth Ballen, Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0223/p09s01-coop.html

You Say Islamo-Fascist, I Say Militant Islamists, http://www.teambio.org/2007/05/you-say-islamo-fascist-i-say-militant-islamists/

Media Coverage of Muslims Bombs: A Pew poll on Muslims in America painted a positive picture. So why was the coverage so negative? By Lorraine Ali, MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18853924/site/newsweek/