>No one of course can quite compete with the comics page of the WSJ, but
>they can try. In today's Chicago Tribune there is an op-ed headed
>
> Take a Stand
> THERE IS NO MORE WIGGLE
> ROOM FOR MUSLIMS
Well, Zev Chafets in yesterday's NY Daily News committed one of the more repulsive pieces of the columnist's art I've ever read. Chafets' email address is at the end, if anyone wants to offer a critique.
Doug
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New York Daily News - September 16, 2001
Arab Americans Have to Choose It's war now - divided loyalties aren't acceptable [by Zev Chafets]
ne of the issues Mayor Giuliani addressed at his first press conference of the war that started Tuesday was a warning against scapegoating American Arabs and Muslims. That cautionary note has since been sounded by everyone from President Bush to Muhammad Ali. Not all Arabs are terrorists, and not all Muslims are enemies.
Underpinning this concern is the memory of how Japanese-Americans were herded into confinement camps during World War II. Many German-Americans - including, absurdly, German Jewish refugees - and Italian-Americans also were placed under government supervision. They were, we can see in hindsight, victims of guilt by association. Nobody wants that to happen again.
But guilt by association cuts both ways. The undeniable fact is that until Tuesday, at least, a great many American Arabs and non-Arab Muslims openly associated themselves with groups and countries that engage in and support terrorism.
It is also an undeniable fact that many of Osama Bin Laden's kamikazes lived in the United States, disguised as peaceable, law-abiding residents. Some of the suspects, it is already emerging, were American citizens - a Yemeni-American was arrested in Hamburg, Germany, on Thursday - and more will certainly be caught.
No one who has paid any attention to the Arab-American community can be surprised by this. Many mosques, here in New York and beyond, are hotbeds of anti-American sentiment. "Respectable" Arab community organizations across the country raise money for Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. This sort of affinity for the worst elements in the Middle East has been a hallmark of Arab-American political discourse for years.
Since Tuesday, community spokesmen have gone on TV to denounce the sneak attack on New York and Washington. Listen closely, however, and you hear a but: "We deplore the killings, we deplore Bin Laden, we deplore the spontaneous outbursts of joy from Cairo to Baghdad - but you have to understand. The Arabs are angry at America because of its embargo on Iraq and its support for Israel."
In other words, it's all America's fault. Arab hatred of the Great Satan is justified. You've brought it on yourselves.
This seems an odd posture for people who don't want to be considered guilty by association. It would be as if Japanese-Americans went on the radio after Pearl Harbor to explain why Japan was driven to a desperate act by American policies. Or German-American leaders held a press conference to denounce America's alliance with Great Britain as the cause of all the trouble.
The blasts that blew up the Pentagon and the World Trade towers - what unbelievable words those are to write! - also demolished this kind of Arab double-talk. We are in a moment of extreme moral and political clarity. After Tuesday, Americans know precisely who their enemies are.
There are apologists for Islam who say that a great religion has been tarnished and perverted by a few zealots. But Islam, like communism and every other mobilized ideology, can be judged only by its actions. Political Islam is as political Islam does - in Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and other theocracies.
Arab spokesmen similarly argue that the Arab world is being branded anti-American because of the extremism of a few. But that's nonsense. In that world, hatred of the U.S. and anti-social international behavior are nearly universal. For example, the half-dozen nominally pro-American oil principalities have bankrolled terrorism for decades. Seven radical states - Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon and Sudan - are openly hostile to the United States, and most have in recent years spilled American blood.
Palestinian organizations, too, have murdered Americans, some in the present terror war on Israel. According to their own polls, upward of 80% of the people in the West Bank and Gaza voice support and admiration for suicide bombers.
Even Arab "moderates" customarily flirt with radicalism. The Hashemite kingdom of Jordan sided with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. Egypt's state-controlled media is famous for its inflammatory anti-American, anti-Semitic vitriol; Egypt is also, and not coincidentally, the homeland of many of Bin Laden's Islamic warriors.
Only a simpleton could look at the Middle East and conclude that wild-eyed hatred of America is a marginal phenomenon or that it is caused primarily by U.S. support for Israel. Even Bin Laden himself says the real issue is the American presence in Saudi Arabia. And yet Arab spokesmen have tried since Tuesday to place the blame on our alliance with Israel.
Most Americans won't swallow this type of anti-Western cant, and they will be even less impressed by it now that American is at war. I have no doubt that a great many Arab-Americans want this country to win. I look forward to hearing their spokesmen say so, with no ifs, ands or buts.
E-mail: zchafets at aol.com