Historically, Amir Taheri notes, the U.S. has compiled an exemplary record of defending Muslims, from Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to ensure Arab independence after World War I through the defense of Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s. Yet this history has engendered little affection, and neither have contemporary efforts to combat the supposed danger of “Islamophobia”:

[N]o major power in recent history has gone out of its way as has the United States to help, respect, please, and, yes, appease Islam. And yet, no other nation has been a victim of vilification, demonization, and violence on the part of the Islamists as has the U.S. . . .

[In modern times], the politically correct crowd has turned Islam into a new taboo. They brand any criticism of Islam as racist, ethnocentrist, or simply vile, all crammed together in the new category of “Islamophobia.”

Is it Islamophobia to question a religion whose Middle Eastern leaders often preach “Death to America” and hatred for Western values? More prevalent than Islamophobia is Islamophilia, as leftists treat Muslims like children whose feathers should not be ruffled.

The Islamophilia crowd does great disservice to both Western democracies and to Islam itself. It invites Americans and Europeans to sacrifice part of their own freedom to atone for largely imaginary sins against Muslims in the colonial and imperialist era. It also invites Muslims in the West to learn how to pose as victims and demand the rewards of victimhood as is the fashion in Europe and America. To the Muslim world at large, the message of Islamophilia is that Muslims need no criticism, although their faith is being transformed into a number of conflicting ideologies dedicated to violence and terror. . . .

All that Western intellectuals or leaders need to do is stop flattering Islam, as President Obama has been doing for the past seven years. . . . Many Muslims resent that kind of flattery, which takes them for idiots at a time that Islam and Muslims badly need to be criticized.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.