News and Analysis (12/4/15)

Anonymous FBI sources report that the attacker “had been in touch on social media with extremists who were under FBI scrutiny” but that his “contacts online did not involve any significant players the FBI knew of …

• California Gunman Was in Touch with Extremists (Christian Science Monitor)

• Lynch Warns Against Anti-Muslim Backlash (Politico)

• Muslim Americans fear Demonization of Islam After Mass Shooting (Reuters)

…  but Dahlia Mogahed asks why even though the motive of the San Bernadino killings is not clear while that of Planned Parenthood killings is,  everyone assumes “Muslims kill for Islam” and white shooters are just deranged” …

• The Tragedy of Shootings and the Double Standards that Follow (Huffington Post)

… while Juan Cole ponders the way white terrorists are treated differently (being called “gunmen” instead of “terrorists” while hundreds of billions are spent fighting and new government agencies created to fight non-white equivalents …

• Top Ten Differences Between White Terrorists and Others (juancole.com)

… and Steven Salaita challenges the “discourses of violence into categories of good and evil, civilized and savage, rational and unreasonable.  Who creates these binaries?  Who suffers their finality?  Who profits from their endurance?”

• Syed Farooq is an American: Let’s Stop the Muslim vs. Christian Debate and Take aLook at Ourselves (Salon)

Intent on showing they are tougher on Muslims than their rivals, the Socialists ask, “How many mosques were closed for radicalization during the last 10 years? None”:

• France Shuts Down Three Mosques and Four Muslim Prayer Rooms (NY Times)

Attention, Donald Trump: The Middle-Eastern-looking  people “caught video-taping the disaster and shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery” in New Jersey were five Israelis arrested by the FBI:

• Muslims Still Condemn Terrorism While (Some) Politicians Still Condemn Muslims (WRMEA)

Irfan Ahmed critically reviews Hallaq’s argument in The Impossible State that the “state as an institution and entity is a purely European idea … in sharp opposition with … Islamic governance … [dismantled by] European colonialism”:

• On the State of the (Im)possible: Notes on Wael Hallaq’s Thesis (Journal of Religious and Political Practice)

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