Arab-American activist lies about a rising tide of bigotry

H/t to changedforever for sending this is,

This should be good a real howler.

By BRUCE NOLAN, 1 March 2008, Religion News Service
NEW ORLEANS — American culture’s view of American Muslims and Islam is steadily deteriorating under an onslaught of “bigotry” on cable news shows, newspaper op-ed pages and in the blogosphere, an Arab-American activist told an audience at Tulane University on Feb. 19.

-A quick search and you will see the opposite is true, articles, newspapers and even Hollywood go out of their way to cover the crimes of Islam.

That’s a significant shift, said Hussein Ibish, founder of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership in Washington, D.C.
-He has a right to his opinion no matter how incorrect it may be.

Decades before 9/11, Hollywood handed Americans the perceived wisdom on Arabs as passionate, hyper-sexed, irrational and cruel. Movies such as Rudolph Valentino’s 1921 silent classic “The Sheik” and turn-of-the-century thrillers such as “The Rules of Engagement” portrayed Arabs only as terrorists, Ibish said.
-This is basic misdirection and meaningless. Most Americans are not going to research how Arabs were depicted prior to 9/11. It also fails to mention the differences between “Arab’s” and Muslims. It fails to mention that the American reaction to Arab terrorism on 9/11 can not be ignored or explained away as simple racism. By tossing the Arabs as victim’s card he actually distracts from his victim status and angers Americans at the comparison and indifference to our American victims.

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, however, Hollywood has backed off. In the meantime, Ibish said, commentators and politicians on the right — and a few on the left — have replaced film stereotypes with hours of air time devoted to misrepresenting Islam and fueling suspicion about American Muslims.
-Well, I do what I can. I would do more but I have to earn a living.

Ibish, formally trained as a literature scholar at the University of Massachusetts, works in public policy. He described his foundation as one that trains Arab-American leaders to describe their values to the broader culture in easily understood American terms. He appeared as part of a university symposium on relations between the U.S. and Muslims.
-This is the credibility baseline. He went to college so he is smart got it, I am soooo not impressed. Education alone doesn’t make for good moral character or accuracy.

Ibish is an occasional guest on cable talk shows, often recruited to represent an Arab-American point of view in some cultural or civil liberties conflict. He has had at least a couple of sharp exchanges with the Fox News Network’s Michelle Malkin. One, in May, turned on whether the Kansas City International Airport was right to install a faucet so Muslim cab drivers could wash their feet before prayer.
-Michelle Malkin is hot. The foot wash flab was ridiculous all US airports already have suitable facilities for Muslims to wash their feet, they are even placed close ground level, we call them commodes. Just try not to wet the area around them. Have some compassion for others.

Since 9/11, he said, commentators such as Malkin, Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz have transferred old anti-Arab stereotypes to Islam, in a stream of “incredibly bigoted commentary” that would not have been tolerated before then.
-Would you like cheese with that whine?

“This is what explains the collapse of the good name of Islam,” he said.
-Well not as much as 1350 years of oppressively violent history, or the more modern examples of honor killing, enslavement, pedophilia, terrorism and bigotry by Islamic leadership.

In this context, Ibish said, the West sees Islam as bent on its destruction and American Muslims as suspected allies who cannot credibly deny otherwise. Thus, ethnic profiling becomes reasonable and forced internment or mandatory identification of Muslims becomes a potential remedy, he said.
-He got me there, locking them all up would be a solution. I would rather see Muslims come forward and admit Allah chose a piss-poor example as a spokesman in Mohammed and a new more modern spokesman be identified to lead Muslims into the 20th century. I have no reason to think they will ever enter the 21st century but they could move closer than they are.

Moreover, any request for cultural accommodation, such as the water faucet in the airport, may be linked back to the memory of 9/11.
-What is it with the feet? This guy might have some sort of foot fetish.

Ibish said he did not want to sound alarmist. “This is still a great country to live in,” he said. But a growing climate of suspicion toward Muslims — and the automatic dismissal of Muslim denials — make the situation steadily worse, he added.
-Darn, back to the victim thang. If we just turn a blind eye to the daily activities of practicing Muslims they would all behave themselves.

“There are people who want to make it impossible for the American Muslim community to engage in dialogue,” Ibish said.
-Not honest dialogue. Start with “Hi I am _____ and I follow the most oppressive and violent Ideology ever invented” I think even I would stay to see what he had to say afterwards.

While most of the anti-Islamic rhetoric comes from the right, it occasionally comes from the left as well, he said.
Ibish noted that Eastern liberals, including Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., opposed Bush administration plans to let a Dubai company operate a number of American ports, saying it was too great a security risk.
-Muslim as a victim alert: reality is no nation should ever completely totally turn over critical infrastructure security to outsiders. Muslims should also admit all of their own religious, political and social groups have a long history of infiltration by radical Muslims. If they can not trust themselves they shouldn’t expect us to do so.

Finally, a student of American popular culture would find that anti-Islamic rhetoric sounds vaguely familiar, Ibish said.
-Another lie, I never heard a single anti Muslim comment prior to the 93 attack on the world trade center.

He said that’s because in tone and substance it almost exactly tracks the anti-Semitic messages that filled American culture between the world wars.
-Cute attempt to mislead. Americans as anti-Semitic, we should make amends and massively increase military support to Israel. That should help make up for it. Great Idea he has there. It took me toward the bottom of the page but finally we found common ground, increase scrutiny of Muslims and increase support to Israel.

Bruce Nolan writes for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

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