re: #4 Max D. Reinhardt

I don’t even think we are on the road to it. The percentage of hate crimes directed at Muslims is tiny compared to number suffered by the Jewish community, Muslims are not randomly picked up and detained without probable cause, and Muslim stores are not frequent targets of vandalism.

I fail to understand what one has to do with the other. The most recent FBI hate crimes statistics report is from 2009, which would mean that the data is from 2008, well before the current wave of Islamophobia got underway.

I don’t doubt—as the FBI report indicates—that hate crimes against Jews more frequent than those against Muslims. The percentage of racially based hate crimes against Blacks are similarly much higher than those against Whites, especially if you consider the ratio of Blacks:Whites vs. Jews:Muslims in terms of percentage of the population. But I’m not good with numbers, so lets leave the statistics for now.

What is undeniable is that American Muslims have not achieved the same level of cultural acceptance that American Jews have, nor do we have the political clout that comes with powerful lobbying groups, or the protection of numerous well-funded & highly organized national institutions guarding our interests.

Last time I checked there were something like 17 anti-sharia bills pending. How many anti-Halacha bills are pending?

In 2007, 42 members of Congress protested the recognition of Ramadan by voting “present” on the resolution. When was the last time a politician voted against the simple recognition of a Jewish holiday?

What about the protesting & demonstrations over the building of mosques? I haven’t seen any national news stories about protests against the building of synagogues.

What about the politicians who are currently (and potentially) running for President of the United States who have helped fuel the current Islamophobia and made varying degrees of bigoted comments about Muslims (as well as other groups)? I’ve been tracking this crap for months and have a whole database full of examples. I wonder how long a candidate would last if they smeared Jewish Americans they way they do Muslims?

So, yeah, the statistics on hate crimes are higher when it comes to anti-Semitism, but it hardly cancels out all of the above. As a matter of fact, it’s my understanding that one of the reasons Jewish organizations are speaking out against the anti-mosque, anti-sharia stuff is because they’ve seen this before and know where it can lead. Given the continued existence of anti-Semitism, it wouldn’t be difficult, once anti-Islam laws were on the books, to turn them against Judaism as well. A recent example—not specifically related to anti-Muslim sentiment, but rather to exclusionary actions by an elected official—is the letter sent by the ADL to Gov. Perry regarding his upcoming prayer assembly.

This stuff is for real and it stinks.