A MODERATE MUSLIM ON THE NEW PEW SURVEY: Tawfik Hamid, former member of a terrorist group and now a Muslim reformer, has been accused by CAIR of being "the latest weapon in the Islamophobe arsenal."

High praise that makes his op-ed in The Wall Street Journal--How to End 'Islamophobia'--well worth reading.

According to a recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, "younger Muslims in the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified." About one out of every four American Muslims under 30 think suicide bombing in defense of Islam is justified in at least some circumstances. Twenty-eight percent believe that Muslims did not carry out the 9/11 attacks and 32% declined to answer that question.

While the survey has been represented in the media as proof of moderation among American Muslims, the actual results should yield the opposite conclusion. If, as the Pew study estimates, there are 2.35 million Muslims in America, that means there are a substantial number of people in the U.S. who think suicide bombing is sometimes justified. Similarly, if 5% of American Muslims support al Qaeda, that's more than 100,000 people.

Read Hamid on what needs to be done.

Technorati Tag: PEW Survey and Islamophobia and Islamists and Tawfik Hamid and Islam.