A great column, as usual, by MJ Rosenberg:
I don't know why I am at all surprised that the American Right - including the Republican Party - has decided that scapegoating Muslims is the ticket to success. After all, it's nothing new.
I remember right after 9/11 when the columnist Charles Krauthammer, now one of the most vocal anti-Muslim demagogues, almost literally flipped out in my Chevy Chase, Maryland synagogue when the rabbi said something about the importance of not associating the terrorist attacks with Muslims in general.
It was on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, but that did not stop Krauthammer from bellowing out his disagreement with the rabbi. Krauthammer's point: Israel and America are at war with Muslims and that war must be won.MJ Rosenberg
Krauthammer is a regular columnist in the Washington Post. He gets paid to spew his hate, and quite well, we can imagine. He is a conservative.... but as MJ points out in his column, they are not alone to blame for this current campaign of anti-Muslim organized hate.
One could ask what the Middle East has to do with the vicious outbreak of Islamophobia (actually Islamo-hatred) that has seemingly seized segments of this country.
US Islamophobia's origins
The answer is everything. Although the hate is directed at Arab-Americans (which makes it worse) it is justified by invoking 9/11, an attack by Muslims from the Middle East.
This hate is buttressed by the hatred of Muslims and Arabs that has been routinely uttered (or shouted from the rooftops) in the name of defending Israel for decades -MJ Rosenberg
The truth is that this anti-Arab and anti-Muslim campaign of hate is quite advantageous for some politically, in helping to gain support for Israel and its war against the Palestinian people. It also helps ease the way for US imperialism in the Middle East. It's called dehumanizing the enemy.
We are not likely to see our Democratic congresspeople attend any rally for the tea party, or falling over each other to find a place at the next Glenn Beck dinner speech. Yet they do attend meetings for groups like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where speakers from the very extreme and bigoted Right often get choice speaking slots (note: while their major events often are bipartisan, and they include some liberal politicians, a look at their speakers that are not in elected office shows a very rightward slant. More likely to see John "Let's Bomb Iran Now" Bolton and Rev. Hagee than even the most mild liberal critic of US/Israeli policy. Why do our progressive politicians support organizations that help sow hatred and war?
So its not surprising that Harry Reid, one of the most powerful Congressional Democrats, comes out and openly joins the anti-Muslim chorus and tells Muslims they have no right to build anything in certain areas of New York. Was there any congressional Democrat who had the courage to challenge Reid's ignorance in this matter? I am not aware of any such thing... once again, political expediency comes first, the need to stand against bigotry... not so important for the powerful.
This has got to stop. This is very dangerous. We are seeing, with each new election cycle, new heights of organized hate. Two years ago we saw the "Obama is a Muslim" as a way to delegitimize Obama (and we waited months to hear, from Colin Powell of all people, to say "He's not a Muslim, but so what?"). And during that campaign, there was a rather bold and astonishing anti-Muslim DVD being distributed by this shadowy group based in New York. Millions of Americans were "treated" to a DVD called "Obsession" in their Sunday papers as part of an advertising campaign. (See "Who put hate in my Sunday paper") Hate as mainstream and as expected as bargains at Safeway.
That is why we need to not only take individuals like Palin and Beck and Krauthammer to task, we must also start challenging institutions that are often part of the problem, especially, i think, if these are usually seen as part of the liberal establishment. Let's put our own house in order. That is why i wrote of the ADL's complicitya few weeks ago, and its long history of siding with bigoted anti-Muslim/Arab actions.
This is an American problem. We, all of us, need to address the problem. We have seen some Christian and Jewish and secular organizational support for sowing the bigotry. We are also seeing Christian and Jewish and Muslim and secular peoples and organizations coming together to fight it. We must root this out, before it is too late.