American Islamic Backlash Simmers

This weekend, a protest by anti-Muslim demonstrators with military-style weapons and an in-flight disagreement over a can of Diet Coke provided fresh evidence of a mounting Islamic backlash in America.

High-profile incidents have become familiar in recent months, with an outpouring of anti-Islamic sentiment on social media after the release of the surprise hit film "American Sniper," and a protest against an annual Muslim day of outreach at the Texas Legislature. A Mohammed cartoon drawing contest in Garland, Texas, last month, even provoked a failed terrorist attack.

Polls suggest that these flashpoints come from a decisive and growing split in how Americans see Islam. The current backlash is largely among conservatives, and it appears to reflect not just a fear of terrorist attack but also a deeper conviction that the tenets of Islam fundamentally prevent it from living peaceably with the modern world. The result has been a hardening of rhetoric.

Friday's protests were a response to last month's attack in Garland. About 250 demonstrators – many of them armed, some wearing T-shirts with profane anti-Muslim messages – gathered outside the Phoenix mosque where the shooters in the attack had worshipped. The organizer called himself a patriot standing up against the perceived tyranny of Islam.

Meanwhile on Sunday, social media was humming with the story of a Muslim scholar who had been denied a can of soda on a United Airlines flight because the attendant said it could be used as a weapon – though others on the flight had received cans, the scholar said. A fellow passenger also told the scholar: "yes you know you would use it as a WEAPON, so shut the **** up," she added on her Facebook page.

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