Ralph Nader is without a doubt one of the truly transformational figures in contemporary American history. We drink cleaner water, breathe purer air, drive safer cars and are better protected at work and at play, because of the movement he led.
Ever the innovator, Ralph has taken on a new challenge: to force open discussion about topics that had previously been considered "off-limits" by "main-stream media, legislative bodies or the electoral arena." His project, called "Debating Taboos" sponsors televised debates bringing these controversial issues into the public square.
This past week, I participated in one of these, on the topic -- "Is there a double standard in the response to anti-Semitism against Arab Americans compared with the response to anti-Semitism against Jewish Americans?" Some who had been invited to participate in the discussion declined. They acknowledged that "anti-Arabism" and Islamophobia are a problem but dismissed Nader's formulation of the topic as "utterly misconceived," "misleading and even tendentious." They argued that the word "anti-Semitism" can refer only to Jews.
In reality, however, Nader has a point since historically the animus that has inspired bigotry directed against Arabs and Muslims, on the one side, and Jews, on the other, has been cut out of the same cloth. It was a largely Western phenomenon that emerged in full force with the emergence of the modern state system in Europe and was directed against two Semitic peoples -- one which the West found living within its midst and which it identified as an internal threat; and the other which the West confronted as an external challenge, but which it similarly defined as a threat.
As a result, both groups suffered a history of vilification and dehumanization enduring persistent and systematic campaigns of intense violence. Jews were segregated, tormented, targeted, and forced to endure repeated pogroms, leading to the horrors of the Holocaust. The dehumanization campaigns against Arabs, on the other hand, were used to justify imperial conquest, the colonization of Arab lands, and efforts to eradicate their identity in the Maghreb and their dismemberment and dispersal in the Levant.
Three decades ago I collaborated in a study of political cartoons and other forms of popular culture comparing the depiction of Jews in Tsarist Russia and pre-Nazi Germany with those of Arabs in the U.S. in the '70s and '80s. In both content and form, the treatments given to each of the two groups were virtually identical. The two most prevalent German and Russian depictions of Jews paralleled the two most common images of Arabs projected in U.S. cartoons. The fat grotesque Jewish banker or merchant found its counterpart in the obese oil sheikh, while the image of the Jewish anarchist, communist, subversive terrorist, morphed into the Arab and now Muslim terrorist. They differed only in attire. Both were seen as alien and hostile. They were accused of not sharing Western values, being prone to violent conspiracies, being lecherous usurpers of "our" wealth -- and therefore threats to Western civilization.
To Nader's point -- it is a sad but true fact that while it has become unacceptable to publicly express or manifest bigotry against Jews, anti-Semitism against Arabs -- and increasingly, by extension, against Muslims -- remains a part of our popular culture and our political discourse. For several reasons this type of bigotry against Jews has become unacceptable. For one, the collective memory the horror of the Holocaust looms large. Then there is the fact that we have developed a familiarity with the rich diversity within the Jewish community and are aware of the many contributions Jews have made to our common heritage. Images of Jews of all types are present in our popular culture. Finally, there is the reality that Jewish community organizations with many allies across the ethnic, religious and political spectrum have made it clear that there is a price to pay for public manifestations of bigotry. (It has not gone away, to be sure. Rather, its proponents have become marginalized and gone underground).
Arabs and Muslims, on the other hand, are still portrayed as more violent, less humane, not sharing our values, less rational, more prone to anger and less trustworthy than the rest of us. And these notions are fueled on a daily basis by our popular and political cultures.
Hollywood, in particular, has an Arab and Muslim problem with negative stereotypes abounding. But our political culture is no better. For more than a decade now, some political leaders have been engaged in poisonous discourse targeting Arabs and Muslims -- culminating in recent years in the mass movement to block the building of an Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan, a rash of referenda and legislation to block the imposition of Sharia law in over two dozen states, and declarations by presidential candidates insisting that Muslims would have to take special loyalty oaths before allowing them into public service. And it has been revealed that many in our military and law enforcement agencies have received deeply flawed and biased training about Arabs and Muslims. And while this hate has had devastating consequences for Arabs and Muslims--in crimes against their persons and rights, discrimination, and profiling--the purveyors of the hate have received nary a slap on the wrist.
Racist books like Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind continued to be used to train our military through the end of the Iraq war. The likes of Michael Savage and Ann Coulter remain on the air and retain cult-like followings. Obsessed anti-Arab and anti-Muslim writers and bloggers are quoted by presidential candidates, law enforcement agencies, and hate criminals, alike.
And it is clear that there is a double standard at work in all of this. Ask yourself what the reaction would be if Arab Americans wrote books about Jews like those written by David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spenser -- what would we call them? What would the reaction be if Herman Cain had suggested that American Jews or Mormons or any other religious group be required to take a loyalty oath before serving in government? And what if an Arab billionaire made and distributed millions of copies of movies charging that there was a massive and violent Jewish conspiracy to take over the West, would presidential candidates be lining their campaign coffers with his millions as they are with Sheldon Adelson?
The bottom line is that Nader is right to have encouraged this debate because there is a shameful double standard and it must end. And the sooner Americans address this problem and correct it, the better our country will be.
Follow James Zogby on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AAIUSA
Reality is-the only time Arabs ever refer to themselves as Semites is when showing up Jews.
April 5, 2007
We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree...
We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.
We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called "Islamaphobia" in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.
We call on the governments of the world to
reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights;
eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women;
protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence;
reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims;
We enjoin academics and thinkers everywhere to embark on a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islam, and to promulgate the ideals of free scientific and spiritual inquiry through cross-cultural translation, publishing, and the mass media.
Endorsed by:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Magdi Allam
Mithal Al-Alusi
Shaker Al-Nabulsi
Nonie Darwish
Afshin Ellian
Tawfik Hamid
Shahriar Kabir
Hasan Mahmud
Wafa Sultan
Amir Taheri
Ibn Warraq
Manda Zand Ervin
Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/isis/
Obviously they have. Those Asian groups who make significant contributions to American society and dedicated themselves to hard work, education and co-existence have earned respect from their American brethren and a welcomed place in American society.
F&F
Finally, a small minority of Arabs have declared war on American and have hijacked planes and committed mass murder of Americans in the name of Islam. If there are any Jews who have done anything similar I don't know of them (and I hope that they are locked up). If Zogby and Nadar are wondering why America is wary of Arabs, they need to do a better job of keeping up on current events.
let's give credit where credit is due.
and arabbs have not? meanwhile, there is a big difference in what 'the price to pay' is…
surely ure familiar w/Molly Norris, a journalist now living in hiding, having had to change her name, quit her job, move away from her family and friends, and continue to live in fear of her life. her crime….
she 'insulted the profit'.
how about theoVanGough….he is no longer living…he was mrdred for 'insulting is.l.a.m.'
LarsVilksContinues to live in fear of his life, for insulting 'the profit'….
there is a long list of people worldwide that have been attakd,ki|||ed, or living in fear of their lives,
for 'insulting' someone or something associated to mu.s.l.ims.
so as yu continue to question what yu call the 'double standard' of anti-semitism….
maybe a look at the results of such should be taken into consideration.
It is unfortunate that this study didn't include direct modern connection of the above to U.S. context
New York times 2002
Arab Paper Is Accused Of Inflaming Anti-Semitism
"...The newspaper, The Arab Voice, based in Paterson, N.J., printed a passage from ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'' an apocryphal document dating from czarist Russia in the late 19th century that has long been used to buttress anti-Semitic hatred... It was frequently invoked in Nazi Germany..."
director of the New Jersey regional office of the Anti-Defamation League, said that the publication of the excerpts of ''The Protocols'' was inflammatory and irresponsible."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/nyregion/08ZION.html
You are lying big time.
This at a time when your fellow Israelis were celebrating across the Hudson and 40 Israeli spies where captured.
It CAN be used to mean anything. But if you don't want to fake ignorance or simply change the meaning, it DOES refer only to jews.
Fighting against islamaphobia is a good thing, but I don't know why Zogby feels it necessary to change the meaning of anti-semitism in order to do so.
Therefor it applies to ALL Semitic people. the fact that you and your fellow Jews are so prejudice that you what this to only refer to Jews even non Semitic Jews is just part of your religious brainwashing. Logic will prevail.
Wrong. That isn't what the word means.
"just part of your religious brainwashing"
No. It's part of my learning English and understanding what words means. Look up the meaning of the word. Seriously, look it up anywhere! I'll even help...
"hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group "
"Prejudice or hatred against Jews, a Semitic race."
"1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews."
I could find 1000 of these and not a single one using the definition that you think "correct".
(I can't help but wonder if you are equally confused by the term "African-American".)
That's very similar to Nazi condemnations of Jewish culture as a parasitic and degenerative copy of European culture.
It is a toss up.
The idea that antisemitism can be directed toward Arabs or Muslims is a redefinition of the term
I understand Arabs are semitic people but not all Muslims are Arabs. Moreover, Arab countries are for the most deeply antisemitic (anti-Jewish) but many claim not to be antisemitic since they are themselves semitic. If this was true then Jews could not have prejudices against Arabs either since Jews are semitic people.
What is wrong with the term Islamophobia which better describes this issue? Antisemitism is clearly defined as a prejudice against Jews. The next will be for Zogby to tell us that the holocaust was also directed against Arabs since the Nazis were antisemitic.
He will of course forget to mention the closed ties between many imams and Hitler.
Acrophobia is the fear of height and yes one could for many good reasons be afraid to fall. One has reason to be afraid of Islam but when one justifies discrimination based on this fear it is Islamophobia.
I personally think Islam is a religion controlled by very dangerous people but I would never on an individual basis discriminate against someone for being a Muslim.
I am afraid of falling but I am willing to take an elevator or climb up a mountain because I am not acrophobic. I will make sure the elevator looks reasonable and has an inspection certificate.
I am afraid of Islam but I will treat all Muslims fairly since I am not Islamophobic. This being said, I think they should be carefully checked at airports.
This is the reason Malaysia, which has no practically no Jews, has one of the highest antisemitism rates in the world,
Wrong. against only one Semitic group--Jews. Only those entirely unfamiliar with European history would claim otherwise.