If you’re disturbed by the apparent growth of anti-Muslim prejudice in America, read this AP article by Helen O’Neill about 1 small town’s battle for tolerance. It’s about how the tiny village of Sidney Center, New York (photo, left, of “downtown”), came together in brotherhood after town leaders voted to investigate—and possibly remove—two graves of Sufi Muslims from the town cemetary. It’s America at its best, it’s about the America our immigrant grandparents dreamed of becoming a part of.
Religious or racial hatred is ugly and evil, wherever it pops its head. But it’s much uglier when it’s spread in the name of religion. This is from Agence France-Presse last Tuesday:
Fifty Israeli rabbis have signed an open letter warning Jews not to rent or sell property to non-Jews, saying those who do should be “ostracized,” a copy of the letter showed on Tuesday.
“In answer to the many questions, we say that it is forbidden in the Torah to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a foreigner,” says the letter, referring to the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible.
The text, which was signed mostly by state-employed rabbis, warns “he who sells or rents them a flat in an area where Jews live causes great harm to his neighbors.”
While the Israeli government is often in thrall to the extremist clergy who rant that God gave the entire ancient land of Israel (including what’s now Jordan) to the Jews, this was too much for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who harshly condemned the letter.
“How would we feel if we were told not to sell an apartment to Jews? We would protest, and we protest now when it is said of our neighbors. Such things cannot be said, not about Jews and not about Arabs. They cannot be said in any democratic country, and especially not in a Jewish and democratic one. The state of Israel rejects these sayings.”
Other prominent Israelis also condemned the letter, as did America’s Anti-Defamation League.
I saw this three-minute video and smiled a lot, and decided I wanted to share it. It’s about a bunch of people who give free hugs. But what do free hugs have to do with ethics?
Simply an application of the Golden Rule. The freehug movement was started by someone who needed a hug so he offered to hug anyone else. Do unto others…But it’s also a statement for tolerance, for acceptance and love of strangers: For you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 23:9).
So watch, smile, and remember,
A stranger shall thou not oppress; for you know the heart of a stranger, seeing you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Amid the heated rhetoric and accusations surrounding the planned Muslim Community Center two blocks from Ground Zero, here’s some heartening news, courtesy of Washington Jewish Week. More than 100 mosques and 100 synagogues in 22 countries participated in interfaith “twinning” activities last weekend. In the D.C. area highlights included a community service project for teens and a joint Muslim-Jewish statement: “Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism are both products of fear which we find unacceptable and intolerable. We encourage the larger community to speak out against hate. Our communities have common roots; we are all children of Abraham.”
Christine O’Donnell is the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware. When asked why she thought she was qualified to be a Senator she gave this as her chief qualification:
“I have a graduate fellowship from the Claremont Institute in Constitutional Government, and it is that deep analysis of the Constitution that has helped me to analyze and have an opinion on what’s going on today.”
At today’s candidate forum in Wilmington O’Donnell challenged her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons about where in the Constitution did it say anything about separation of church and state. When the audience gasped and laughed she grinned, thinking she had him there. She went on to demonstrate shock and surprise when Coons told her about the First Amendment. It was news to her.
O’Donnell will likely lose on November 2: not so sure to lose is Sharon Angle, Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, who believes that Sharia law reigns today in Dearborn, Michigan.
What does this say about the Republican voters who voted for such people?
EthicsBob recently slammed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for his failure to denounce Israel’s former chief rabbi for calling for death to all Palestinians: his office merely issued a statement that the rabbi’s views “don’t represent” Netanyahu’s. But when Jewish settlers set fire to a West Bank mosque this week the Israeli Prime Minister quickly ordered Israeli security forces to “act firmly to quickly uncover the criminals and bring them to justice.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak went further, calling the perpetrators “terrorists in every sense of the word.”
It’s beyond my memory that any senior Israeli official publicly called violent religious settlers terrorists. Hooray for Barak; hooray even for Netanyahu.
Sadly there are people on both sides of the Jewish/Arab divide who use the incident to inflame. The UK-based Middle East Monitor headlined its coverage, “Israeli settlers burn yet another mosque in occupied Palestine.” It implied that the crime had the assent of the Israeli establishment, saying that “In the current climate of global Islamophobia these uncivilised and intolerant acts will evoke little or no condemnation or censure.”
Not true. Netanyahu and Barak are siding against the Israeli terrorists. That’s a good thing. There’s no excuse for failing to credit it.
We honor politicians who denounce members of their party or of their administration who lie, cheat, steal, or defame. Those who defend such behavior—or are silent about it—are encouraging it and eventually own it as their own. Some try to have it both ways—gently stepping away from the crime without offending the criminal. Like Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu?
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reports today that Ovadia Yosef, formerly chief rabbi of Israel, called yesterday during his weekly Shabbat sermon, for death to all Palestinians. Rabbi Yosef, spiritual leader and a founder of Israel’s leading ultra-Orthodox Shas Party—part of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing coalition with four ministers—described Palestinians as evil, bitter enemies of Israel:
“Abu Mazen [more commonly known as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] and all these evil people should perish from this world … God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians.”
Nothing new for Rabbi Yosef. Haaretz also quotes a 2001 speech in which he proclaimed,
“It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”
When asked for a comment yesterday, Netanyahu’s office fell despicably short of condemnation, issuing a statement, according to the Jerusalem Post, that Yosef’s comments:
“don’t represent the views of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or the Israeli government. Israel entered into negotiations out of a desire to progress with the Palestinians toward an agreement that will end the conflict and ensure peace, security, and good neighborly relations between the two nations.”
Racial and religious prejudice and defamation will always be with us, although they are growing less acceptable socially. Call someone a nigger or dago or spic or kike and you’re out of the game. Write about how Jews control the banks and the media, or how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has destroyed our schools and nice people will come down hard on you. But these same nice people have no such compunctions about spreading hateful misinformation about Muslims.
I got such an email just this morning, from a very nice person. It’s subject line was “Life is a Journey, Not a guided tour,” and it forwarded something called “Jihad watch, Islam Explained in Layman’s terms.”
I’m uncomfortable repeating the vile race-hatred but people need to see what’s circulating virally on the internet and through our society. So here are some of the “explanations,” quotes truncated but—I promise—all in context:
Imane Boudlal, a 26-year old Muslim woman is free to wear a head scarf. The U.S. Constitution says so. Disneyland can’t discriminate against Ms Boudlal because of her religion. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 says so.
Ms. Boudlal works as a hostess at Disneyland’s Grand Californian Hotel, where employees are called “cast members.” She has worn Disney’s prescribed uniform for over two years, but has asked permission to wear a head scarf. Management told her they would try to get a Disney-appropriate headscarf, but seemed to be dragging their feet.
Ms. Boudlal ran out of patience after a couple of months and showed up for work Sunday wearing a hijab. She was told to either remove it or work out of the customers’ sight. She refused and was sent home—four times. Now she’s suing Disney.
Disney spokeswoman Suzi Brown said Disney has a policy not to discriminate. She said that Boudlal may work with the head covering away from customers while Disneyland tries to find a compromise that would allow her to cover her head in a way that fits with her hostess uniform.
“Typically, somebody in an on-stage position like hers wouldn’t wear something like that, that’s not part of the costume. We were trying to accommodate her (more…)
Ethics Bob 
NPR fires Juan Williams for anti-Muslim comments: intolerance, political correctness, or a stand against bigotry?
October 21, 2010“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Marshall excoriates NPR’s action as the intolerable “intolerance of the self-righteous heralds of toleration.”
I’m conflicted over this one. I don’t think Juan Williams should have been fired, but I find his statement very unfair, and somewhere between ignorant and bigoted.
Ignorant, because Muslims wear all kinds of garb, including the sporty American look that the 9/11 hijackers apparently tried to present. Bigoted, because it’s bigotry to assign stereotypical characteristics to individuals, whether to assume that Jews are money-grubbing, that Irish are drunks, that black men are sex-crazed, or that evangelical Christians are gay-bashers.
For Americans in 2010 it’s particularly hurtful to stereotype Muslims as terrorists, as many on the political right are now doing. A scary portion of the population is buying into the idea of Muslims as “other.” It’s horribly unfair to people who are (more…)
Tags:9/11 hijackers, al Qaeda, anti-Muslim comments, anti-Semitism, “other”, bigotry, Christ-killing, Edward R. Murrow, ethics, Ethics Alarms, evangelical Christians, firing, Fox News, gay-bashers, intolerance, Irish, Jack Marshall. Bill O’Reilly, Jews, Juan Williams, Muslim garb, National Public Radio, NPR, political correctness, political right, stereotypes, terrorists, tolerance, war with Islam
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