Islamic extremism’s rise in California
...and what to do about it
By Joel Kotkin, California Post
Much has been written about the “Islamization” of Europe and the UK. Is it now California’s turn?
Two major books — “Londonistan” by Melanie Phillips, and “Submission,” a novel from France’s Michel Houellebecq — have pictured an old continent that is increasingly at the mercy of often violent Islamists.
Although the Muslim population in Europe is much larger as a percentage of residents, the Muslim population of the US is booming, due to high birth rates and immigration. It is expected to pass the Jewish contingent by 2040, and pass 8 million by 2050.
But we don’t have to wait until then to see the contours of the Islamization of America.
New York City, where Muslims may be as numerous as Jews, Italians or Irish, has already elected a staunchly anti-Israel, Third Worldist Mayor in Zohran Kwame Mamdani.
Increasingly, we see Democratic Party candidates critical of Israel, including Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, as well as three potential anti-Israel congressional candidates in New York, the largest Jewish city in the diaspora.
These conditions can also be found here in California, once described by an observer in the late 19th century as “the Jews’ earthly paradise” for its economic and social promise.
Jews have shaped much of California’s progress, from Levi Strauss and the founders of the entertainment industry to numerous other leaders in culture, science, real estate and finance.
But California is increasingly in the Islamists’ sights. In LA, the Jewish diaspora’s second largest city, mayoral candidate Nithya Raman continues to criticize Israel during the campaign.
Even some Jewish politicians cannot take the heat. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat and former member of the Legislature’s Jewish caucus, tried to fend off left-wing rivals by embracing the toxic notion of Israeli “genocide,” after long distancing himself from such assertions.
Even the judiciary is getting in the act. We have seen the remarkable case of a prosecutor of Jewish descent, Jeff Rosen, forbidden to prosecute antisemitic vandals because of his heritage.
This is akin to forbidding a black prosecutor from adjudicating a case against the Ku Klux Klan.
Antisemitism, much of it linked to Islamist activists, has made some California campuses particularly toxic for Jews. Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley’s law school dean and a well-known progressive, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that “never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism” rife at Berkeley and other campuses.
Even Hollywood is following suit. Today, leading figures in entertainment, like Maha Dakhil, a top manager at Creative Artists Agency, accuse Israel of “genocide.” Others also refuse to work with Israel film companies. Two thousand actors signed a statement outlining Israel’s “war crimes” with no mention of Hamas’ atrocities.
Pressure to denounce Israel is even evident at the local level. I have seen this firsthand in Santa Ana, where my synagogue is located. A coalition of political radicals and Islamists sought to pass an anti-Israel resolution, but were closely defeated. All this in a largely poor city with its own share of more immediate problems.
Similar measures have passed in California cities like Oakland, which called for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza war without mentioning Hamas’ atrocities, and Richmond, whose city council accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.” Oakland demonstrators even suggested that Israel murdered its own people as a pretext to attack Gaza.
Even worse, California’s youth are subjected to potentially anti-Israel curricula, setting up a whole new generation of antisemitism and in the meantime putting Jewish teachers at risk. San Francisco has experienced anti-Israel walkouts in 10 high schools, organized by an advocacy group with access to student addresses.
As in Europe and Canada, casual antisemitism in California is a natural outcome of the alliance between Islamist militants and our own local far left.
What is the answer? Knee-jerk responses like “Muslim bans” or demagogic legislation banning sharia law in family matters are crude and discriminatory. We cannot blame all Muslims for the extremism of a few.
The recent shooting of Muslims at a San Diego mosque, allegedly perpetrated by deranged youngsters with Nazi sympathies, is as horrendous as the killing of any innocents.
What is needed: moderate Muslims who openly embrace America and denounce antisemitism, even if they disagree on aspects of US policy. Waving the flags of terrorist groups and the repressive Iranian theocracy is no way to integrate into the US mainstream.
One key advantage: Unlike in Europe, where Muslims are increasingly an underclass, American Muslim immigrants are better educated than average Americans. Some, like Persians, outperform the norms in both income and education.
Ultimately, the left-Islamic alliance may founder on its own massive contradictions. Many Muslims are fundamentally conservative, entrepreneurial and hold traditional cultural views at odds with many Democratic positions. American Muslims are far more likely to support legalizing polygamy, while outlawing gay marriage and homosexuality altogether, than the general population.
These views, to say the least, do not jibe well with the “progressive” social values of Raman’s and Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America.
Islamist influence in California and elsewhere defies political category, but the basic agenda is often the same.
The archreactionary Tucker Carlson, the leading fount of antisemitic thought in America, is the proud owner of a home in Doha, Qatar. He has much in common with such online pro-Hamas leftists as Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur, figures embraced by progressive Democrats.
The Islamization of London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin may not be reversible. But that outcome is not yet here.
Still, it is no longer something happening far away. It could happen in California as well.
Joel Kotkin is the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.
