A painful debate at King's Muslim hearings

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Peter King's much-anticipated hearing Thursday on the radicalization of the American Islamic community turned into an emotional and contentious clash over whether its focus would help fight homegrown terrorism or backfire by alienating Muslims.

The debate played out in a tense, packed Capitol Hill hearing room where two witnesses told how extremists recruited a son and a nephew with deadly results, and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) -- the first Muslim elected to Congress -- broke down in tears over what he said was unfair scapegoating of his community.

King (R-Seaford), who called the hearing as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, acknowledged opposition and controversy over his focus but said it would be a "craven surrender to political correctness" to back down.

"Al-Qaida is actively targeting the American Muslim community for recruitment," said King, calling on Muslim leaders to work with law enforcement. "To combat this threat, moderate leadership must emerge from the Muslim community."

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and most other Democrats on the panel disagreed. "I cannot help but wonder how propaganda about this hearing's focus on the American Muslim community will be used by those who seek to inspire a new generation of suicide bombers," Thompson said.

King refrained from provocative statements and was evenhanded in running the hearing, but often had to bang his gavel to keep Democrats from going over their time as they argued against holding the hearing.

King bypassed the testimony of experts -- a move criticized by Democrats -- and called two family members to describe the process of radicalization.

Abdirizak Bihi, a Somali from Minneapolis, gave a scathing portrayal of the actions of local imams when his nephew and 19 other young Somalis disappeared in 2008. When he and other family members went to the FBI to seek help in finding the men, Minneapolis imams tried to intimidate them from cooperating with law enforcement, he said.

Then they learned the young men went to Somalia to join fighting by the terrorist group al-Shabab. His nephew died in the fighting.

The other witness was Melvin Bledsoe, whose son Carlos became a Muslim when he went away to college, then went to Yemen, and after he returned to the United States allegedly fired shots at a Little Rock, Ark., Army recruiting station, killing one and wounding another.

Bledsoe called the recruitment of Carlos "the big elephant in the room. Our society continues not to see it."

But Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, the Democrats' witness, said he had good relations with local Muslims.

"It is counterproductive to building trust when individuals or groups claim that Islam supports terrorism. This plays directly into the terrorists' propaganda that the West's 'war on terror' is actually a 'war against Islam,' " he said.

In the debate, lawmakers on the committee largely followed partisan lines, and at the end of nearly five hours of testimony and questioning, little had been resolved.

King said the hearing had successfully addressed the issue without a blanket condemnation of all Muslims. And he announced he would hold more hearings in the future.

Outside the hearing room, those for and against the hearing weighed in.

"We have been waiting for this hearing for 10 years," said Geraldine Davie, who said her 23-year-old daughter Amy O'Doherty perished in the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. "The problem is the Muslim community needs to change."

But Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, D.C., said, "Hearings like this can only instill fear and alienate Muslims from the American community."

With Elaine Povich