New Census Bureau data show the population of Americans of Arab ancestry has doubled in the last two decades.
As the grandson of immigrants from the Arab world, I’m not surprised.
I know why most Arabs come to this country. They come to escape Islamic persecution in the Arab world. They come for the freedom America affords. They come for opportunity. But most of all they come for a life away from the brutal reality of Islamo-fascism, which dominates the Arab nations.
How do I know this?
I know from personal, anecdotal experience. I know why friends and family members came here. But I also know because the statistics offered by the Census Bureau demonstrate it.
What am I talking about?
While Islam is the overwhelmingly dominant religion of the Arab world, only 23 percent of the Arabs in this country are Muslim.
That statistic speaks volumes.
Even after the latest wave of emigration from the Arab world, 77 percent of Arab-Americans are non-Muslims – mostly Christians.
This is a fact other Americans should know. As an Arab-American, I can tell you there is almost an assumption by most Americans that Arabs – even Arab-Americans – are Muslims. It’s understandable given the demographics of the Arab world.
However, the demographics of the Arab-American community are strikingly different.
These facts are not sitting well with the Muslim-American groups. They charge that Muslim-Americans are being undercounted. In fact, for too long, the Muslim-American groups have been attempting to speak for the vast majority of Christian Arab-Americans.
In fact, Christian Arab-Americans tend to have vastly different viewpoints on the Middle East than Muslim-Americans. They tend to have vastly different outlooks on the war on terror than Muslim-Americans. They tend to have vastly different perspectives on American life than Muslim-Americans – at least different than the self-proclaimed leaders of the Muslim-American organizations.
In 1992, the American Muslim Council estimated there were more than 5 million followers of Islam in the country, of whom 12 percent were Arabs. Other Arab and Muslim groups say the number is closer to 6 million Muslims, a population that would make them more numerous than Jews.
With those spokesmen, vying for political influence, have exaggerated their constituent base by a factor of two or three times, the Census Bureau numbers rain down like a cold shower. Politicians – from the president on down – need this reality check.
In 2001, the American Religious Identification Survey, released by the City University of New York, estimated the total number of Muslims in America to be no higher than 2.8 million – or 1 percent of the population and roughly half as large as the Jewish population. This figure is much more in line with the Census Bureau numbers and probably much closer to the truth than the 5 million, 6 million or even 7 million figures suggested by the professional Muslim activists.
Again, according to the ARIS report, recent Arab immigrants from Egypt, Jordan and Iraq are disproportionately Christians – and some are Jews.
While politicians often assume Arab-Americans are going to be hostile to the state of Israel, this is not necessarily true – particularly when those Arabs are Christians and especially when they are Jews.
The Arab-American community is not monolithic politically – despite what the professional Arab spokesmen and the professional Muslim spokesmen would like you to believe.
I believe most Arab-Americans – like most Americans – want to see their brethren in the Arab world freed from oppression by the mullahs and the oil sheikhs. I believe most Arab-Americans – like most Americans – want to see the United States defend itself from terrorist attack. I believe most Arab-Americans – like most Americans – want to see freedom breaking out in the Arab world.
And, I believe most Arab-Americans – like most Americans – don’t want to see the U.S. orchestrate the creation of another terrorist state in the Middle East.
The devils are here
Ben Shapiro