The issue of banning Muslims and expanding America’s existing wall along the Mexican border to deal with illegal immigration remains a contentious political issue in the election campaigns for president this year, but most Americans do not support imposing special restrictions on immigrants and specifically on Muslims. But a new poll by the PEW Research center is flawed and fails to measure American attitudes towards “Arabs,” which embraces a whole different level of ignorance and stereotypes
By Ray Hanania
covering Chicago
City Hall
(1976-1992)
The good news is that most Americans surveyed in a recent poll by the PEW Research Center do not support restrictions on Muslims in America, as advocated by several of the Republican candidates for president.
But the PEW Poll makes a predictable error when it fails to measure how the same audience views “Arabs.”
“Arabs” are more associated with the Middle East while “Muslims” are associated more with religious freedom. The vast majority of Muslims in the world and right here in America are not Arab and represent nationalities that have been embraced by this country. Arabs, on the other hand, continue to be the focus of discrimination and Muslim Arabs are discriminated against more than any other ethnic group.
It’s a standard that is difficult to measure, especially since America and the U.S. Census refuse to measure the presence and roles of Arabs and Muslims in this country. Not including references to Arabs and Muslims among the dozens of other ethnic and racial groups identified helps to keep Arabs and especially Arab Muslims away from the “table” where government and societal decisions are often made without Arab or Arab Muslim input.
The PEW survey found that the views of the public towards Muslims varies depending on the political candidates they support.
Voters who support Republican frontrunner Donald Trump tend to support more restrictions on Muslims and immigrants, according to the PEW Survey, while voters who support Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders tend to oppose those restrictions.
Here are some highlights of the report on the issue of Muslims:
- 33 percent of all people surveyed by PEW support restrictions and more scrutiny of Muslims, while 61 percent believe Muslims should not be subjected to more scrutiny.
- 53 percent of Republican voters support more scrutiny while only 17 percent of Democrats support more scrutiny.
- 64 percent of Trump supporters support more scrutiny of Muslims.
- 53 percent of supporters of Senator Ted Cruz support more scrutiny of Muslims.
- 37 percent of supporters of Gov. John Kasich support more scrutiny of Muslims.
- 22 percent of supporters of Hillary Clinton support more scrutiny of Muslims.
- 12 percent of Sanders supporters support more scrutiny of Muslims.
The survey was conducted between March 17 and March 27. PEW officials said that interestingly, the survey results did not seem to be impacted by the suicide bombings that killed 35 people (including 3 suicide bombers) and wounded 300 more civilians in Brussels, Belgium on March 22.
To read the full PEW Survey, click here.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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