Muslim Numbers in America Rise and Rise, and With Them, the Jihad Threat

And the danger these Muslims pose to Jews, but also to Christians in America, is insufficiently understood. An enlightening essay on the growing threat can be found here; Tal Fortgang is writing about the threat to Jews, but in the end, Christians will suffer as well, for as Muslims have been known to say, “After the Saturday people, the Sunday people”: “Jews Must Start Thinking Clearly about Islam in America,” by Tal Fortgang, Tikvah Ideas, November 2026:

In 2025, many American Jews were shocked by the victory in the New York City mayoral race of Zohran Mamdani, who has made hatred of Israel the cornerstone of his political career, and who has since commemorated the anniversary of September 11 with a condemnation of America. Even more unsettling is the rise of Abdul El-Sayed, arguably an even more radical candidate, surrounded on all sides by connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and anti-Israel obsessives. But here an important fact comes into play: according to most estimates, Michigan, where El-Sayed is running for a Senate seat, has nearly twice as many Muslims as Jews. If current trends continue, similar ratios will become increasingly common throughout the country.

To many Americans, and especially to American Jews, the very expression of concern about the growth of the Muslim population smacks of the worst kind of bigotry. Perhaps the only thing more uncomfortable than voicing such concerns is seeing political figures with the views of Mamdani or El-Sayed rising to power. Our own Jewish identity has so often been deployed against us that we now cringe at the thought of trading in a kind of discrimination that disadvantaged our fathers. How should American Jews deal with this predicament? Should our views of immigration shift accordingly? And are such worries really a concession to the selfsame prejudice once turned against Jews?

Let’s begin with some facts. Less than a month after October 7, 2023, a college professor in California approached a pro-Israel rallygoer named Paul Kessler, hit him in the head with a megaphone, and killed him. In October 2024, a twenty-two-year-old shot a Jewish man walking to synagogue in Chicago. In June 2025, a man yelling “free Palestine!” firebombed a gathering in Boulder, Colorado in support of Israeli hostages, killing an eighty-two-year-old Jewish woman. And in March 2026, a man drove his explosive-laden vehicle into a synagogue preschool in suburban Detroit, where he was stopped by security before he could kill dozens of Jewish children….

There are approximately 5.5 million Muslims in the United States, a number that has more than doubled in the last two decades. As of 2020, there were 2,800 mosques in the country, the number more than doubling since 2000 and likely higher now several years later. Rapid immigration, overwhelmingly legal, has fueled this growth, with more than half of American Muslim adults reporting that they were born abroad. High fertility rates among a young population have also played a role. Absent drastic changes to immigration policy, fertility rates, or conversion-attrition trends, Islam will pass Judaism as the largest non-Christian religion in the United States within the next fifteen years….

The rise in Muslim numbers, and thus in Muslim voters, has had a worrisome effect on politicians in both Europe and North America. They are now increasingly determined to win, or retain, the support of Muslim voters.

To the extent that population comes to resemble that of Muslims elsewhere, this is obviously worrisome. There is no need to spend much time describing the fanatic anti-Semitism endemic to Arab and Muslim countries, whence immigrants would come under a liberal American immigration policy. Suffice it to say that the ADL has measured the prevalence of anti-Semitism worldwide and found that 74 percent of adults in Muslim-majority Middle Eastern countries agree with six or more anti-Semitic stereotypes. In the Palestinian territories, some nine out of ten individuals harbor anti-Semitic views; in Iraq, 92 percent. Even in Muslim countries far from Israel with negligible Jewish populations, the numbers are remarkably high: 61 percent in Malaysia, 53 percent in Senegal, and 48 percent in Indonesia. A 2010 poll asking about favorability of Jews found that 97 percent of Jordanians view Jews unfavorably; 95 percent of Egyptians said the same. About three-quarters of respondents from Pakistan, Indonesia, and Turkey view Jews unfavorably….

After years of soft-pedaling crimes committed by Muslims against Jews, France is now burning. As of this writing, the one constant from the scenes of buildings in flames, shattered glass, and assaults on police across France is the Palestinian flag. Unifying Islamists, migrants, and leftists, the organization of politics against the Jews appeals to all parts of the third-worldist coalition. Preliminary reports of ransacked synagogues and Jewish-owned stores only drive the point home: hatred of Israel, hatred of the West and its inheritance, and special opprobrium for Jews, wherever they may be found, make an extremely appealing political bundle. Unless a crackdown comes soon, France’s political future belongs to whoever picks the bundle up and presents it to voters. Nearly a decade ago, the French Jewish intellectual Alain Finkielkraut admitted to being “extremely worried—as much for French Jews as I’m worried for the future of France.” At risk of repeating the obvious, that’s because bringing in enormous numbers of people with alien views changes a nation’s culture, which eventually hardens into politics and law. France has changed: “it would be absurd to suggest all immigrants are anti-Semites,” Finkielkraut continued. “The majority perhaps are not. But most anti-Semites today in France come from Algeria, northwest Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. That’s the reason anti-Semitism isn’t being fought very much.” Whether there is a French future depends on whether that tide can be turned.

Read that again: “Whether there is a French future depends on whether that tide can be turned.”

Does the same future await America? In its current composition, the American Muslim population is quite different from Europe’s. That could be because American Muslims come from more diverse national origins, because America lacks Europe’s colonial and post-colonial history, or because there is a large “native” stream of American Muslims within the black population. The U.S. has also taken in a very small share of migrants and refugees in recent years. Regardless of the exact causal inputs, most American Muslims are highly assimilated and generally express less-extreme views than their counterparts elsewhere.

A remarkable 92 percent of American Muslims say they are “proud to be an American.” Sixty percent say they have “a lot” in common with most Americans, indicating a much greater sense of belonging than their European coreligionists. Only 11 percent say that they have “nothing” or “not much” in common. Eighty-two percent express concern about extremism done in the name of Islam around the world—a higher number than that of Americans generally—and only 8 percent believe violence against civilians is at least sometimes acceptable “to defend Islam.” A 2022 study found that “although American Muslims are less positive toward Jews than non-Muslims, the difference is not great, and, on average, American Muslims have positive views of Jews.” (However, the same study found, “Muslims who immigrated to the U.S. may be importing their home-nation anti-Semitism with them.”)

Yet there are signs that a significant share of American Muslims do not share most Americans’ moral and political intuitions. These are easiest to perceive, unsurprisingly, when American Muslims are asked to opine on the Middle East. Despite all Hamas has done to bring poverty and destruction to Gaza, a May 2026 Pew survey found that 44 percent of American Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group. According to the Atlantic Council senior fellow Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, that high number is “neither shocking nor remotely reflective of the full picture.” Rather, “based on countless interactions, trends, and observations since October 7,” Alkhatib suggests that “this number is almost certainly an undercount” reflecting social-desirability bias. If it were more socially acceptable to proclaim support for Hamas, more American Muslims would. Perhaps that would explain why Muslim favorability towards Hamas increased from 37 percent in 2024: not because Hamas has done anything to improve its standing, but because supporting it has become more socially acceptable. The prevalence of once-unthinkable Hamas and Hizballah paraphernalia at anti-Israel demonstrations testifies to this trend as well….

If his presentation alarms you, you are not alone. The author tries to be sober and measured in his analysis, but the picture he paints of a future America with many more Muslims transforming our politics — he calls it “political capture” — and also posing a threat to the physical security of American Jews, is positively horripilent.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

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