We have the option of heading down a path toward a greater tolerance of anti-Muslim xenophobia and fear of the “stranger in our midst,” or we can rededicate ourselves to the ideal of an America that is open and welcoming to immigrants as well as minority groups who have been here for decades. Let us hope that the better nature of America will enable us to proceed down the second path and reject those who seek to divide us for political gain, or those who wish to stereotype and scapegoat an entire people because of their religious faith.
***************************************
If you think Foxman is an idiot read this.
Remember Who We Are
Editorial, FORWARD
September 01, 2011
When Amy Waldman was writing her engrossing new novel, “The Submission,” premised on a Muslim winning the competition to design a memorial at the World Trade Center site, she wondered if her depiction of the uproar and violence by opponents of the design would ring true. That was before plans to build an Islamic cultural center near the site ignited anti-Muslim hysteria across the country. “After that, I realized I was right,” she told the Forward. “The lack of trust was that deep.”
What holds in good fiction is true in life. Trust is still a scarce commodity, ten years after the terrorist attacks left thousands dead in New York, northern Virginia and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Trust in the democratic and patriotic intentions of the Muslims in our midst. Trust in the ability of government to protect us at home and overseas. Trust that the nation will ever be able to put aside partisanship, race, religion and class and come together as it did on September 12th — and for a blessed but abbreviated time afterward.
This mistrust is keenly felt by Muslim Americans. In a new poll by the Pew Research Center, a majority of Muslims say that they feel targetted by government anti-terrorism policies; 55% say that being a Muslim in the United States is more difficult since 9/11. Significant numbers say that they have been viewed with suspicion, called offensive names and feel singled out by airport security. Would any other minority group accept this? Yet the survey also found a steadfast and overwhelming rejection of Islamic extremism and a similarly strong sense of satisfaction with life in America — nearly four out of five rate their communities as good places to live.
There is no way of knowing how Jews fit into this dynamic; our numbers are far too small to figure in this survey. The never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict surely affects Jewish-Muslim attitudes, but that could be counterbalanced by the fact that, in the American political context, Jews and Muslim share a prediliction for liberal politics and an understanding of the benefits of social acceptance.
There is, unfortunately, one disturbing way that a small number of Jews are contributing to the unfair characterizations and discrimination of Muslims.
A new study by the Center for American Progress reveals that seven foundations have spent more than $40 million in the last ten years to spread misinformation about Muslim Americans. And who leads those efforts? Far too many Jews, including blogger Pamela Geller, co-director of the group Stop Islamization of America; David Yerushalmi, whose attempts to promote anti-Sharia laws were detailed recently in the Forward; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, which gave a platform for Yerushalmi’s dangerous ideas; Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, who has even criticized President George W. Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for being soft on Muslims.
The attacks on Islam promulgated by these and a few others “go right to the heart of two critically important national issues: the fabric and strength of our democracy and our national security,” says the CAP report. Combating Islamophobia isn’t just a nice thing to do; it is essential to shoring up our security at home and our image abroad. The question is whether all the positive efforts to build trust with the American Muslim community can offset this well-funded, misdirected network.
In her novel, Waldman pens a poignant scene in which Salman Khan, father of her fictional architect, describes why he gave his son such a Muslim name, Mohammed. “We believed so strongly in America that we never thought for a moment that your name would hold you back in any way. And now — ” Given the fierce opposition to his son’s work, Salman wonders “whether this country has a place for us.”
“Of course it does,” Mohammad responds. “But sometimes America has to be pushed — it has to be reminded of what it is.”
A decade later, America still needs that reminder.
@ dweller:
And part of Foxman’s motives must be seen as venal: his tender loving concern for Muslims keeps him close to the centers of power: Obama and the rest of the PC crew….
Typical Jewish liberal who perversely regards Christians who love Jews and Israel as the enemy while simultaneously courting the friendship of those who call for Jewish genocide.
Tell that to Europeans who have lost parts of their countries to muslims who have carved out sovereign enclaves of their own under sharia law and which non-muslims dare not enter.
What happens when those immigrants seek to forcibly impose their so-called religious faith on the rest of us? Should we still be tolerant at that point?
Who else to target if not the source of all of the terrorism?
A complete lie since airport security prefers to molest six year olds and and grope senior citizens then to appear “islamophobic” by singling out passengers who actually fit the profile of a potential terrorist.
So long as Foxman is in charge, anyone contributing money to the ADL ought to have their head examined.
Leftwing Jewish universalism was precisely what kept the NYT (and other Jewish-owned, US publications) from suitably addressing the magnitude & distinctiveness of the Shoah during the war. Oh, they ‘covered’ it all right, but strictly as an example of wartime persecution & random excess — without ever taking up the matter of deliberate genocide.
From Robt Leiter’s 2005 review of Laurel Leff’s book, Buried By the Times:
“The publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, comes in for considerable and often justifiable criticism. Like many other Jews of the period, he had a troubled relationship with his Jewishness and was outspoken in his opposition to Zionism. All this led him to make unfortunate journalistic decisions as he strove to insure that the paper was not perceived as favoring any one group, the Jews especially.”
(1) The complete compensation packages for the top executives at all agencies and organizations that solicit the Jewish community for funds should be published. (This includes salary, health benefits, vacation benefits, retirement benefits etc. etc.) some time ago a Jewish publication did that and I was surprised and dismayed at some of the salaries displayed. Certainly, there are many things I do not like about the ADLs program and their priority. Now I also feel that Foxman defrauded me since I donated regularly in the past.
(2 )The fate of the Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere should still be a matter of concern.
(3) The Forward still is mentally in the days of the cigar makers. Unfortunately, too many Jews are a mixture of the labor movement of the 1910s and 20s ; the economic mentality of the 1930s: and the new left of the 1960s and 70s. I have often regarded the thrust (bragged about by many rabbis) of orienting Jewish funds and Jewish efforts to helping the poor in Africa,etc. They’re trying to harness and divert Jewish energy and other Jewish resources to“world causes” and thus siphon- off limited resources from the Jewish community (in the guise that this demonstrates that Jews are not parochial). In fact, they are bragging to the world: “look at me, look at the great man I am!”
Foxman is a horribly traumatized human being, and must be regarded in that light. He’s got some frightful, personal, childhood history with Christians in his Past, tied up with displaced fear, resentment and revulsion — and it has left him blind to the Islamic peril in his Present. His experience lead him, as a child, to overreact to Christians generally — though in recent decades he has come to SEE that it was indeed an overreaction. Now, for fear that he might overreact comparably to Muslims as well — even though he is no longer a child, and has an adult’s discernment– he bends over backwards to ignore what goes on before his very eyes. It’s obvious that he doesn’t trust his own good judgment.
He must surely be countered, that goes without saying — but countered by those who understand what he’s been through:
All the same, any objective observer can see the grotesque scarring & confusion that this horrific and revolting series of episodes would inevitably have left on a young, developing mind.
Abe Foxman is a walking testimony to the truth of dweller’s Second Law of Political Troubleshooting:
“Seventy percent of what passes for politics in this world is in fact PATHOLOGY seeking a political outlet; i.e., it is pathology masquerading as ‘politics’. (In some circles, that figure is closer to ninety percent.)”
Once upon a time, as a little boy slept, a monster crept into his room, and the closer he came to the child’s bedside, the more the boy’s terror grew. As the Beast leaned over the bed, the little one reached out to claw at it, in desperate hopes of keeping it at bay. With time the creature disappeared, the boy became a man and the fear was forgotten. But the Beast did not die. You see, when the boy had reached out to claw at the Beast, the creature’s cells got in under the boy’s fingernails. And grew silently with him as HE grew.
Now the Beast was in him…