Recent Items on Anti-Arab and Muslim Bigotry

My listing of bigotry in the previous did not even mention the most pervasive and acceptable form of bigotry in the United States, Europe and Israel today - bigotry against Arabs and Muslims, also known as anti-Arabism, Arabophobia or Islamophobia. Such bigotry is often also classified as racism since most Arabs and Muslims, including those who technically would be considered "caucasian," are browned skinned, African or Asian. The button above is just a symbol of the attitude towards and pervasiveness of this form of bigotry.

Of course, there are lots of sites that deal in and pander to such bigotry, like FrontPage.Com, FreeRepublic.Com, LittleGreenFootballs.Com, RushLimbaugh.Com, not to mention the more subtle brands promoted by the neoconservative and pro-Israel lobbies listed here.

Item: A Haaretz report (December 9, 2007) documents a civil rights poll showing that ‘Israel has reached new heights of racism…’, citing a 26% rise in anti-Arab incidents (Association for Civil Rights in Israel Annual Report for 2007). The report cites the doubling of the number of Jews expressing feelings of hatred to Arabs. Fifty percent of Israeli Jews oppose equal rights for their Arab compatriots. According to a Haifa University study, 74% of Jewish youth in Israel think that Arabs are ‘unclean’.

Item: The founding principal [of the Khalil Gibran school, New York City’s first school based on the theme of Arabic language and culture], Debbie Almontaser, was forced out in August after she defended the T-shirt slogan. When she was asked by The New York Post about the phrase “Intifada NYC,” which had been printed on T-shirts sold by a Brooklyn organization, she said, “The word basically means ‘shaking off.’” Of the T-shirts, she said, “I think it’s pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society” and “shaking off oppression.”

Item: A new book "Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy" by Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg explores the “deeply ingrained anxiety” some Westerners, and especially Americans, experience when considering Islam and Muslim cultures.

Item: President Bush had ended his crusading trip through the Middle East to occupied Palestine (Israel), some Gulf States (Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, and Saudi Arabia), and Egypt before returning home. The main goals of this crusade was to support and to legalize Israeli terror against the Palestinians, specifically against their democratically elected Hamas leadership in Gaza, to bully the Arab Gulf States to help oppress Palestinian resistance and to accept Israeli occupation of Palestine, to accept the un-needed billions of Dollars worth purchase of American weapons in order to buttress the falling American economy, and to help American, and Israeli, efforts to contain Iran and to limit its expanding power throughout the region. Secondary goals were to solicit Arab’s help to control Iraq and to increase oil production.

Item: A federal appeals court has reversed the bank and wire fraud conviction of an Anchorage Arab-American businessman in a case that developed after he reported his print shop vandalized and the words "We hate Arabs" spray-painted across an inside wall. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that District Court Judge James Singleton erred by not granting a request to move the trial of Nezar Khaled "Mike" Maad out of Anchorage after the extraordinary publicity that followed the vandalism, which occurred soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.