Sarah Beebe’s threat to Dearborn

Sarah Beebe explicitly threatened Dearborn for having a large Muslim population, but she has not been charged with ethnic intimidation or terrorism, yet. She apologized and the authorities called it a day.

Other threats against the community have gone unaddressed, despite being brought to the authorities’ attention.

But when Khalil Abu-Rayyan reposted ISIS videos, the FBI sent an informant to radicalize, manipulate and seduce him.

Abu-Rayyan, who told the informant he wanted to “shoot up” a church in Detroit, is not the first misguided young Muslim man to be entrapped by the FBI. Similar cases are unfolding across the country.

But despite the FBI’s attempt to paint Abu-Rayyan as a terrorist in a criminal complaint, a grand jury did not indict him for terrorism.

Federal intelligence agencies identify Muslims who have radical tendencies like sharks spot blood. They then lure them to act upon their extremist ideas in order to get them to say something incriminating.

Intelligence agencies brag about “foiling” ISIS plots they themselves help orchestrate.

By contrast, social media are filled with threats and incitement by right wing Islamophobes against Muslim Americans. We don’t see the FBI going after them or sending informants to rile them up and push them toward violence to lock them up.

It is especially alarming that the federal government has played on the sectarian rifts in our community to get indictments and media coverage.

The undercover FBI informant, who posed as a 19-year-old named Jenna Bride, told Abu-Rayyan that her cousins were killed by Shi’a militants in Iraq, according to his defense attorney.

Abu-Rayyan is a Sunni Muslim born and raised here.

This was a clear attempt to incite sectarianism.

Abu-Rayyan told the informant repeatedly that he does not want to hurt anybody, attorney Todd Shanker said.

“I think I do need help,” Abu-Rayyan told Bride. The FBI ignored his cry for help.

The Arab American News urges the community to unite in facing sectarianism and extremist thinking.

As for the government, we hope its rhetoric about cooperating with Arabs and Muslims and protecting their communities turns into action.

This double-standard in dealing with threats is unacceptable and dangerous.

Mass shootings by troubled men, including incidents this week in Kalamazoo and Kansas, keep tragically recurring under the nose of the authorities. The White supremacist who killed nine people at a Black church in Charleston last year had an online manifesto where he advocated for starting a race war.

That was a clear sign of radicalization gone unnoticed by the government.

In a previous editorial, we slammed Abu-Rayyan for his sick, violent ideas. But the FBI should treat all troubled people the same way. If Abu-Rayyan is a terrorist, so are the social media users calling for bombing Arabs and Muslims in Dearborn and Hamtramck.