In his July 17 Facebook post, Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, spewed unhinged hatred and bigotry against American Muslims. Writing his response to the Chattanooga shooting, Graham used language that can only succeed in radicalizing Americans:

We are under attack by Muslims at home and abroad. We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S. until this threat with Islam has been settled. Every Muslim that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalized–and they do their killing to honor their religion and Muhammad. During World War 2, we didn’t allow Japanese to immigrate to America, nor did we allow Germans. Why are we allowing Muslims now? Do you agree? Let your Congressman know that we’ve got to put a stop to this and close the flood gates.

Consider if a major Muslim cleric in Pakistan wrote, “We are under attack by Christians at home and abroad. We should stop all immigration of Christians to our land until this threat with Christianity has been settled. Every Christian that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalized–and they do their killing to honor their religion and Jesus.” Such language would, and does, radicalize ignorant youth. It fosters terrorism. Graham’s language has the potential to foster similar terrorism–indeed such language has done just when used to justify oppression of minorities in American history.

For example, during World War II, racists and bigots argued that all Japanese immigrants and natural born Japanese Americans are a threat and must be treated as such without exception. Graham compares the act of one deranged individual, Chattanooga shooter Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, to the Nazi and Japanese world war on all of humanity. He demonizes all Muslims in virtually the same language used 70 years ago to demonize all Japanese. Notwithstanding the ensuing horrific concentration camps Japanese Americans suffered through, Graham insinuates a similar solution to Muslims and encourages his millions of followers to “let your Congressman know we’ve got to put a stop to this and close the flood gates.” Even today, Japanese Americans recall the barbarity of having gates closed around them as they were stripped of their fundamental human rights and civil liberties.

The above horrific proposal notwithstanding, none of the Islamophobic bigotry Graham spews is even remotely accurate.

For example, the New York Times reports that:

The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police.” And they back it up with hard facts, adding that in America, “…the 20 plots that were carried out [by Muslim extremists] accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years. In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012.

In short, in the time Muslim extremists have committed 20 plots, right-wing terrorists–most of whom are ostensibly white and Christian–have committed roughly 4,000 acts of terror. Frighteningly, neo-Nazi terrorist organizations report a rise in recruits since the Charleston shooting. But surely Graham condemned right-wing terrorism just last month when Dylann Roof murdered nine innocent black Americans, right? Not in the least, and his hypocrisy is shameful at best.

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