by Sheila Musaji

Robert Spencer posted an article Feel safe yet? which has a photo of a Muslim TSA worker wearing a hijab (scarf) walking through an airport.  He credits Pamela Geller with the photo. 

Spencer says Only greasy Islamophobes would object to a hijabbed, observant Muslim TSA worker, right? After all, to object would be to assume that all Muslims are jihad terrorists or jihad terrorist sympathizers, and that is the very definition of “Islamophobia,” now, isn’t it? We should be applauding the prospect of a devout Muslim who has dedicated her time to protecting Americans by working at the TSA, right?

Actually, yes, only greasy Islamophobes would object, just as only greasy anti-Semites would object to a TSA worker wearing a yarmulke. 

He then talks about the possibilities for “jihadis” to “infiltrate the TSA” to “to place operatives in strategic positions”.  He sees this Muslim woman wearing a scarf as a symbol of the TSA forcing “non-Muslim air passengers to place their safety in the hands of people who clearly hold the same belief-system as did those who made all these security procedures necessary in the first place.”

Actually, the terrorists responsible for 9/11 held a very different set of beliefs than most Muslims.  Unless Spencer has evidence about this particular Muslim woman then he is saying that all observant Muslims are actually dangerous criminals.  This is bigotry!  If Spencer does have evidence about this particular woman, then he needs to meet with his local FBI agent and turn that evidence over.

He then comes to this disgusting conclusion

A hijabbed TSA worker is the personification of a dare: Islamic supremacists are daring the TSA to question her about her belief-system, thereby acknowledging that that belief-system has something to do with terror and violence. The TSA almost certainly did not dare to do so: it is virtually inconceivable that the woman pictured, as well as other hijabbed TSA workers and airport personnel, were ever questioned in any attempt to determine how closely their view coincided with those of Osama bin Laden. To have done so would have been “Islamophobic,” and would have invited protests from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

And so the TSA hires observant Muslims without making any effort at all to determine whether or not they are jihadist infiltrators.

Hiring any observant Muslim who wears a hijab is to give in to “Islamic supremacists”?  The hijab itself is “the personification of a dare” by “Islamic supremacists”.  The TSA doesn’t screen it’s workers?  The “TSA hires observant Muslims without making any effort at all to determine whether or not they are jihadist infiltrators.”?

That last claim really concerns me.  Muslims, like all other Americans, place our trust in agencies like the TSA to keep us safe.  If Spencer has evidence that they are not doing their job, then he should immediately take that evidence to the FBI.