The attack on a cabbie and the desecration of a mosque have led some hysterical folks to suggest that the debate over the Ground Zero Mosque has unleashed a tide of anti-Islam behavior. (via memeorandum)
Jonah Goldberg, though, throws some cold water on the hysteria. (via Daily Alert blog)
Let’s put this in even sharper focus. America is, outside of Israel ,probably the most receptive and tolerant country in the world to Jews. And yet, in every year since 9/11, more Jews have been hate-crime victims than Muslims. A lot more.
In 2001, there were twice as many anti-Jewish incidents as there were anti-Muslim, again according to the FBI. In 2002 and pretty much every year since, anti-Jewish incidents have outstripped anti-Muslim ones by at least 6 to 1. Why aren’t we talking about the anti-Jewish climate in America?
Because there isn’t one. And there isn’t an anti-Muslim climate either. Yes, there’s a lot of heated rhetoric on the Internet. Absolutely, some Americans don’t like Muslims. But if you watch TV or movies or read, say, the op-ed page of the New York Times — never mind left-wing blogs — you’ll hear much more open bigotry toward evangelical Christians (in blogspeak, the “Taliban wing of the Republican Party”) than you will toward Muslims.
Of course, he could point to what’s happening in Europe and note that the anti-Israel “reporting” is even worse there than it is here. I don’t doubt that the blatant misrepresentations of Israel that pass for “reporting” play some role in feeding the resurgent antisemitism in Europe. But no one who is concerned for Islamaphobia, is truly much concerned about demonstrated antisemitism.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
The obsessive desire to faun over Islamic leaders here and abroad thru appeasement has a flip side towards other peoples. Jews of course are no exception from recieving the flip side of Obama’s policies. I thought the3 ADL’s position on oppositon to the Ground Zero Mosque surprising. Yet I can see , thinking this thru that the trauma of Jews from WWII is no different from the trauma of the 9/11 attacks or from the trauma of terrorism in israel. It would be devestating to deny the connection. Yet, Michael Bloomberg, and other Liberal Socialists do that. Thus, they are quiet to some degree.
Are there any figures on who perpetrates the anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents?
Pfft. No, why would they keep stats like that? They hide the fact that most anti-Semitic attacks in Europe are by Muslims.
Meryl,
According to the US figures (that I e-mailed to Alex) there doesn’t seem to be a religious breakdown of perpetrators of hate crimes. The racial breakdown of antisemitic hate crimes was about 100 white and 200 black. On the face that doesn’t sound right. My guess is that a certain percentage of the whites are Muslims.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2008/data/table_05.html
Maybe there’s a religious breakdown someplace, but it’s not obvious.
David
This alleged “attacker” of the Muslim cabbie was obviously from out of town. *Real* New Yorkers respond to the outrages of Muslims (some “proto-terrorists,” others full-blown) by beating up a Sikh on the subway.