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The challenge for Muslims in America is to respect the fears of ordinary people while resisting the exploitation of those fears by political parties, lobbies and sectors of the media. To meet this challenge, Muslims must reassess their own involvement, behavior and contributions in American society.

American officials have bent over backwards to show how sensitive they are to Muslim culture. It didn't seem very effective. They seem to be worried about winning the respect of other people.

The bottom line is this. When it comes to preventing violent extremism and terrorism in the United States, Muslim Americans are not part of the problem, you're part of the solution.

I think the effective thing is, I passed this bill to combat violent extremism in the United States as effective outreach to the Muslim community, so you can pull the religious leaders really on to our team, if you will, to protect us from radicalization from within those communities.

It isn't those of us who oppose American aggression in the Muslim world who need manipulative, exploitative reminders about 9/11; it's those who cheer for these policies who are making a follow-up attack ever more likely.

Americans have almost been conditioned to believe that the majority of people who seek to do us harm are those of Muslim descent.

Comments that suggest that Muslims should be banned from the United States are offensive and unconstitutional.

Unfortunately, more and more Muslim voices are calling for boycotts of the United States and its products.

The best way to prevent the homegrown-inspired attacks is literally positive engagement with Muslim communities. Making sure that any immigrant population that comes into America assimilates, becomes part of our culture. That has been our history; it has made us strong.

We know that we can defeat Islamist terrorism without violating our ideals; indeed, we must. These ideals, these American ideals.