Muslims are The New Jews
Reuters reports,
When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.
The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be “off his rocker.” The second congratulated him and added: “Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country … they are here to kill us.”
Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver’s licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. “What good is identifying them?” he asked. “You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans.”
At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of “the threat in our midst” would alleviate the public’s fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.
In a related piece in Middle East Online, entitled “Muslims in US may face Nazi treatment of Jews,” Bernd Debusmann reports,
A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.
Roughly a quarter of those polled said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with al Qaeda, the extremist group behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
Yet when I say that men like Dennis Prager made the Shoah possible, I’m accused of hyperbole.
“Yet when I say that men like Dennis Prager made the Shoah possible”
Dan…I’m assuming there’s context to that statement, right?
comments on the last prager post below
Ah, just read ’em. I didn’t know Jerusalem Meth was so potent.
I assume that the Gallup poll quoted is the same one as on this page. If so, it looks like the question of special identification was framed by security concerns. For that reason, I take the results with a grain of salt.
I don’t think that Muslims citizens should be forced to carry special ID (I shouldn’t have to declare that, but with all of the hyperbole flying around, I figured that it’s best I do). Surely you get a different answer when you ask about “Requir(ing) Muslims to carry a special ID” “as Means of Preventing Terrorist Attacks in U.S.” than you would if you asked the question without prejudicing the polee with thoughts of imminent terrorist attacks.
I messed up the link. Here ’tis: “Galluping distrust of American Muslims in the USA”
Well, it’s difficult to grasp the truth, when propaganda abounds throughout the media. Reading a piece, the other day, on the arrest of the Muslim clerics arrested for praying on the airplane, I scrolled through the photos accompanying the article.
A caption mentioning the six clerics being handcuffed seemed a bit odd, since no one was handcuffed. Then I noticed there were only FIVE clerics in the photo.
And, one of them was Rabbi Arthur Waskow.
Maybe AP’s trying to imply that Arthur’s a Muslim terrorist???
The photo with Arthur was a protest against what had happened. I’m not sure there is a photo of the original incident. This was a despicable incident – if I ever see Muslims pray in the airport, I’ll be standing nearby to intervene and protest in case they are harassed – and I’ll be holding my cellphone camera at the ready.
I sometimes wear a patch that looks like that, but that’s because I like Velvet Underground.
The Muslims aren’t the new anything. It’s a cute headline for the blog entry, but it misses the mark.
Had the radio host suggested that Jews be forced to wear identification, or that blacks should be relegated to certain neighborhoods, he would have elicited the same or similar responses. This country is racist. That’s not news.
And as for that graphic, it definitely recalls the Andy Warhol Velvet Underground logo. Was that on purpose?
PS I should have said this country contains lots of racists, not that the country itself is racist. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one.
Also, Crammed raises a very important point about the methodology employed in the survey that’s cited. It’s exceedingly important to pay attention to the exact poll questions and to the way in which they are asked.
I think large numbers of Americans would THEMSELVES agree to carry ID cards if such a move was certain to reduce the threat of terror attacks. I know plenty of Jews, for instance, who are not averse to an across-the-board national ID card scheme if indeed it would increase national security.
A propos the Middle East Online article cited, the following statistic is offered under the headline POLLS SHOW WIDESPREAD ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT: “a third [of those polled] thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with al Qaeda, the extremist group behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
Now, such a current probably indicates anti-Muslim sentiment. However, depending on the wording of the poll questions, I can also see how “Muslims in the United States sympathize with al Qaeda” could elicit a “yes” response from even the most sensitive, non-racist person. Indeed, I can see how, again depending on the wording, such a question might elicit a “yes” from MUSLIMS as well.
that’s an appropriate symbol for the radical Islamists, because they are bananas!
Mobius, I stand by my accusation of hyperbole. Prager’s remarks were wrong. But they were wrong in anti-pluralist assimilationist way. Here he represented the large part of both anti-semitic and Jewish thought until the twentieth century that hated Judaism, but not the persons Jewish themselves. “If only they would be like us, there wouldn’t be a problem” or “I don’t mind his being Jewish, but couldn’t he just look and act lik ehte rest of us, accept our lifestyle” While thsi might be wrong thought, and it is anti-muslim/islamophobic, the leap from here to singling out Muslims for particular treatment, is an extreme qualitative jump. While they are both islamophobic, they represent entirely different modes of thought. The step from teh second category of hate to actual murder, here I will give you that that is only a quantitave step, and while it is a large one, we know that people can make it fairly easily. So, I stand by my earlier statement. Prager’s wrong, but so is calling him a Nazi.
Also, a seperate point. In addition to bashing Prager, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to send Mr. Ellisson an e-mail, telling him that as Jews, we’re behind him, and that seeing him swear his oath on the Koran will make us happy and proud to be Americans
Uhh… at the risk of stating the obvious:
Jews (and blacks and orientals) have suffered discrimination despite being peaceloving, and wanting nothing better than to become assimilated Germans/Europeans/Americans.
In contrast, Muslims are quite explicit in their active – and sometimes violent – contempt for their host societies.
As an Israeli friend said when a European implied that the Israelis were acting like Nazis – “How many buses did the Jews blow up on the streets of Berlin?”
The apathy towards Muslims is a RESULT of their own attitudes and actions, not a cause.
Jews, blacks, and other have suffered prejudice without any relation to their peaceful attitudes and actions. THAT is why their ill-treatment was/is unfair.
“it wouldn’t be a bad idea to send Mr. Ellisson an e-mail, telling him that as Jews, we’re behind him, and that seeing him swear his oath on the Koran will make us happy and proud to be Americans
I don’t know enough about Ellison to know whether blanket support is warranted (my excuse is that I’m Canadian). But, perhaps it would make sense to simply support the right to swear on the Koran. It probably pays to be careful where you hitch your wagon.
He shouldn’t be attacked because he’s a Muslim. But, that’s not a good enough reason to support him whole heartedly either.
When I say be hind him, I mean behind him in his choice to swear on the Koran. I also don’t know much about him or his politics. the one tidbit I am aware of, is that he has denounced Farrakahn as an anti-semite. And, as a black muslim in america, that’s a gutsy move.
I’m not in favour of tagging-and-releasing Muslims or anyone else.
However, when I read some of the comments above (rightfully) sticking up for Muslim rights and questioning xenophobic instincts, I think of the persecution sufferred at the hands of Islamic regimes by members of my wife’s family, and the fact that I can’t help but think that the radio show callers and internet posters wouldn’t exactly be sticking up for them.
It angers me and makes me proud at the same time. Such is the fate of a light unto the nations…
Poll questions are usually (probably necessarily) crude, and those mentioned in the post are no exception. But out of curiosity, how would the commenters answer these questions:
1) What percentage of American Muslims do you think sympathize with al-Qaeda? (Of course none of us really knows; I’m asking for a best guess.)
2) If you were given a choice between a random American Muslim moving in next door to you (“random” meaning this person is selected at random from the entire category of American Muslims; could be anything from a delightful neighbor who watches your kids in a pinch to an actual terrorist) and a random American non-Muslim, which would you choose?
I got to go with a Muslim…than say Prager.
Oh Jesus. Muslims are so NOT the new Jews. That Yellow Crescent graphic is ridiculous. I don’t mean to diminish the very real prejudices and pressures that the vast bulk of good, honest, law abiding Muslims have to deal with in post 9-11 America, but neither can I abide by your analogy’s diminution of the suffering of the people forced to wear Yellow stars or Pink triangles etc. by the Nazis. Yeah, it’s a shocking graphic but it’s also incredibly stupid and disrespectful.
all four of my grandparents were robbed of their lives and thrown into concentration camps. my father was born in a DP camp. my mother is a holocaust documentarian who breathes the story of the shoah and breathes it down my neck to this very day. i just got back from a three week tour macabre in germany.
frankly, i think i have a much better place to speak about the shoah then those who aren’t, like myself, a living product of it.
thanks.
Mobius, I’m not even gonna get into my family’s shoah history. (It’s a somewhat unfair trump card to pull by the way. People in here raised some serious questions about your post. You should maybe address them.)
But I’m curious what you think of my comment: “Had the radio host suggested that Jews be forced to wear identification, or that blacks should be relegated to certain neighborhoods, he would have elicited the same or similar responses. This country is racist. ” It doesn’t do Jews nor Muslims any good to equate our suffering. But I am going to go ahead and assume you were more trying to shock with that headline than actually describe what happened.
And as for J’s question “1) What percentage of American Muslims do you think sympathize with al-Qaeda?” Like I said above, the way in which you ask the question means everything. Sympathize with al-Qaeda’s goal of of reducing US influence in the Middle East? I’d say most US Muslims sypmathize. What do you mean by “sympathize”?
Ladies and Gents-
Time to see that the shock value worked. The Shoah was bad. Really bad. Nothing has been as bad since. (well beside what goes on in Africa but we don’t pay attention to that)
However, the road of indifference and ignorance is the road towards burning books and people.
Keep that in mind next time you lump “Muslims” together. We only need to point to what is going on today with ConsvMov to prove that Jews aren’t rep’ed by one set of ideas…so what on earth makes you all think that we can lump a tenth of the world’s population together?
Mobius did use this title for shock value and it worked. Here is the point folks – Do not sit idly by while the blood (or name) of you neighbor is spilled (or destroyed).
Which of us is “sitting idly by while the blood… of [our] neighbor” is spilled? Seriously, why is there so much Jewish self-hatred in these posts? Jews are the most cosmopolitan, well-versed people in marching against the injustices of the world. Who fills the coffers of the ACLU, Greenpeace, Oxfam, HRW, etc?
As for playing the trump card… Uhm Mobius, I’m sure you despise every time the right-wingers say “Well, remember Chamberlain and Munich (1938)?” in using rhetoric to advance an invasion into Iran. You’ve posted in the past that Iran is seeking nuclear tech. for peaceful purposes… If you actually believe that, then why do you not simultaneously believe Ahm.’s conviction when he says he will destroy Israel?
But I digress… when is it appropriate to flash your Shoah credentials? Only when you can attack Jewish fears of the destruction of Israel as paranoia?
Muslims are the new Jews? I fail to see how.
ahmadinejad has never once said the he will destroy israel. rather, he has repeatedly said that israel’s actions will be its own undoing. the tanakah says no different.
and rootlesscosmo — i will respond, but only b/c i think you’re the coolest kid on the block.
the methodology of the polls are irrelevant. would you make jews wear yellow badges if it made you feel safer? would you make jews wear yellow badges if it made it easier to catch terrorists? the second part of the question is meaningless. would you make jews wear yellow badges under any circumstances? that is the question. those who give up freedom in order to gain a little safety deserve neither freedom nor safety. those who give up OTHERS’ freedoms to gain a little safety deserve a swift kick in the groin and a dick in the eye.
josh — you say the step from hating muslims to killing muslims is only quantitative. i have a friend who is currently in iraq because he wanted to “kill some ragheads.” he enlisted specifically with the intent to kill muslims. he is the most all american kid i’ve ever known: an automechanic, a football fan, drinks budweiser and votes republican. that’s america’s majority. and that level of hatred can switch from inaction to action reaaaal fast under the right political conditions.
i stand by my position: people like dennis prager make the shoah possible, because they feed the hatred that enables the dehumanization and denigration of an entire segment of society, singling them out as a target.
“How many buses did the Jews blow up on the streets of Berlin?â€
check out the documentary “what islam wants” from the beeb. it shows pretty succinctly that muslims have turned to extremism because of a failure to integrate them and spread tolerant messages about their culture in the societies in which they live.
why do palestinians blow themselves up? for allah? give me a break.
What percentage of American Muslims do you think sympathize with al-Qaeda?
shit man, i sympathize with al qaeda. i don’t agree with their beliefs or their actions but i get why they feel the way they do.
If you were given a choice between a random American Muslim moving in next door to you (â€random†meaning this person is selected at random from the entire category of American Muslims; could be anything from a delightful neighbor who watches your kids in a pinch to an actual terrorist) and a random American non-Muslim, which would you choose?
my parents in nj have muslims on one side, buddhists on the other, hindus behind them, and catholics across the street. and i like it like that.
Well Palestinians say they blow themselves up for Allah. Are you telling them they’re wrong?
Also…you sympathize with al Qaeda? Isn’t that kinda like sympathizing with the KKK?
And does it really make sense that “muslims have turned to extremism because of a failure to integrate them…” I mean seriously: It’s not like American society was so eager to integrate Jews (or Afro-americans for that matter) but Jews or blacks didn’t exactly go around blowing up NYC subways in response. Did Jews blow up Russian ballets or french theaters because of a “failure to integrate”? Anyway al qaeda and other terrorist groups seem equally likely to snag people who’ve grown up in the West and people who’ve grown up in Muslim countries. Are Egyptians really flying planes into new york because US Muslims haven’t been “integrated”?
Also a failure to “spread tolerant messages about their culture…” I don’t get it- so Muslims are saying: “If you don’t talk about good we are we’re going to have to kill you”?
It just seems really patronizing to treat Muslims like theyre some kind of unschooled savages who don’t have minds of their own. Come on; are muslims really so infantile that theyre not responsible for their moral decisions?
Unfortunately muslims, blacks, latinos and many other minorities in America already have identifying markers, such as skin color, speech, or dress that help others participate in discriminatory practices towards them. Any other efforts to single out people due to their religion and or race is excessive, demeaning and just plain wrong. Not every muslim is a terrorist not every terrorist is a muslim. Lets not forget Timmy of Oklahoma City, the unibomber, the guy who planted the bomb at 96′ Olympics and even the BlackPanther Party was considered a terrorist organization at one point. And for Eric if you truly believe that the black population is fully integrated with American society you should watch some footage from Hurricane Katrina, visit some of the projects of America’s cities, or a predominantly black or latino public school; these places represent the epitome of disenfranchisement.