Kareem Abdul-Jabbar continued to debate with Bill O’Reilly, by proxy, on Sunday morning over terrorist violence and its ties to Islam.
“It feels good to just blame the religion,” Abdul-Jabbar said on Meet the Press. “But the causes go a lot deeper.”
Previously, Abdul-Jabbar had written an op-ed piece in which he drew parallels between the radical Islamic violence seen today and the rampant violence of the KKK and its ties to Christianity.
Watch Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s segment on ‘Meet the Press’ below:
[youtubevid video=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=99YFQzpUlc4″ id=”99YFQzpUlc4″ w=”640″ h=”360″]
Although Christians everywhere denounced the KKK, the organization still viewed itself as Christian. Abdul-Jabbar claimed that the situation was similar to the terrorists we see today and their claim to a “Muslim mask.”
Bill O’Reilly responded on his show by saying that if the analogy were correct, then countries in which these terrorists had a presence should crack down on radicalism the way the FBI cracked down on the KKK.
Abdul-Jabbar said Sunday that such a crackdown was not entirely feasible. “There is no one body that controls all Muslims,” he said. “It’s not like you have a Pope…Even given that the Pope was not able to curtail the Irish Republican Army, who was doing terrorist acts in the name of Roman Catholics. You can’t lump the two together.”