The Rising Tide of Hostile Stereotyping of Islam

By Salam Al-Marayati

Twenty-nine percent of Americans now believe that Islam poses a security threat to the United States and the West, according to the Los Angeles-based Times-Mirror poll. This figure is unmatched by such fear or suspicion among Americans of any other religious denomination.

The World Trade Center bombing in New York, federal charges of sedition levied against suspects of Arab background in Southern California, and terrorist acts against Americans abroad have ignited concern about the role of Islam.

Even though responsible journalists and most U.S. policy-makers agree that virtually all American Muslims are law-abiding citizens, much of what fills the mainstream U.S. press about Islam suggests exactly the opposite. Menacing headlines like "The Sword of Islam," "The Islamic Bomb ... .. The Roots of Muslim Rage," and "Bombs in the Name of Allah," easily distort public perceptions.

The resulting misconceptions readily replace reality in the American public's perceptions of Muslims. As a result, in contemporary America no other group suffers from such irrational religious stereotyping.

By contrast, when a physician is shot by an anti-abortion activist, or a bizarre assassination plot is uncovered among members of an obscure religious cult in America, the nation is not subjected to lurid accounts by "terrorism writers" of a tide of "radical Christian fundamentalism" threatening the foundations of American society.

The anti-Islamic hysteria has two causes. One is the abuse of their religion by fanatics who justify in the name of Islam violence they commit to gain personal notoriety. The other cause is misrepresentation of all Muslims as violence-prone zealots.

Islam's image in the West therefore is changing, but arguably for the worse. U.S. officials fear being branded as apologists for Middle East extremism. Therefore, although they know better, they remain silent as Israel's U.S. partisans depict even minor disputes as inevitable symptoms of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West.

This defamation of Muslims in the U.S. echoes the dangerous dehumanization of Jews in 19th century Europe. In 1873, Wilhelm Marr produced a pamphlet entitled The Victory of Judaism over Germanism. Regarding this booklet, which sowed the seeds of virulent anti-Semitism, biographer Norman A. Rose said: "Marr wrote his work during a time of severe financial and economic crises in Germany, particularly in Prussia and Austria, in which a number of Jews had been implicated for indulging in irresponsible, speculative transactions. These misdeeds were interpreted as a diabolical Jewish plot designed to corrupt the German nation and bring Christian civilization down in ruins."

Today, in the same manner, such seeds of hate are systematically implanted against Islam. A shocking modem parallel is found in a book written by an Israeli emigre, Yossef Bodansky, titled Target America. In Bodansky's nightmare fantasies, the "Jewish financiers" who used their banks to drag Europe into economic misery have been replaced by the "Muslim militants" who are intrinsically anti-West.

A "New Islamist International" has filled the conspiratorial shoes of the "Jewish world menace. "Back then, the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, and the Bleichroders were accused of using international networks to implement Germany's demise. Today, according to Bodansky, Hassan A]-Turabi of the Sudan is masterminding an "armed Islamic movement" against and within America.

A Stunning Difference

What is stunningly different, however, is that instead of being subsidized by religious bigots, racist kooks or hostile intelligence services, Bodanksy is supported by U.S. taxpayers as a researcher for the House Republican Task Force on Terrorisin and Unconventional Warfare. To date, four fair-minded members of Congress have resigned from the task force because of Bodansky's reports, but he continues to turn them out at U.S. government expense.

In them Bodansky claims that the escalation of violence by Muslims is "an intensified Islamist Jihad against the Judeo-Christian world order. "

Bodansky's words echo those of Israeli Likud party leader Benyamin Netanyahu in his book, A Place A I Nations: Israel and the World. In that book Netanyahu declares that "The celebrated goal of Islamic fundamentalism is to secure the worldwide victory of Islam by defeating the non-Muslim infidels through jihad."

Bodansky and Netanyahu are repeating the tactics of Marr, with phrases that echo Hitler's words in Mein Kampf. "By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Prof. Jack Shaheen of Southern Illinois University, author of The TV Arab, says that current propaganda against Arabs and Muslims is similar to the stereotyping during the Nazi era of Jews as "dark, obsessed with sex, and parasitic."

Judith Miller, in an article entitled "The Challenge of Radical Islam," published by Foreign Affairs, justifies suspicions of the sincerity of Islamists "because of Arab and Islamic history and the nature of evolution of these groups."

Such critics charge that Islam endorses a form of concealment or dissimulation. In fact, Shimon Erem, a former B'nai B'rith official, once mistakenly claimed that within the tenets of Islam "not only are you allowed to lie, but you must lie in order to achieve your goals." This denigration of Muslims recalls Hitler's assertion: "The more intelligent the Jew is, the more he will succeed in this deception."

Such slanderous misrepresentations certainly are a factor in the lack of international support for the defense of the largely Muslim government in Bosnia against genocidal attacks, and the toleration of victimization of Muslims in places like Kashmir and Palestine. Repeated sufficiently, false and hostile statements about Islam eventually will lead many Americans to question the patriotism of their Muslim fellow citizens.

One suggestion for rectifying this problem is to refute the notion that Islam is against the "Judeo-Christian" order. Just as Hitler forged a conflict between Judaism and Christianity, apologists for Israel crave for Islam to be at odds with both Judaism and Christianity. To counter this, Americans can more accurately describe the world of monotheism as Judeo-Christian-Islamic, i.e. Abrahamic.

Finally, although those convicted of the World Trade Center bombing are Muslim, Americans should eschew theological interpretations of the motivations. It behooves all Americans to recognize that those who choose to break the law do so as individuals, not as adherents or representatives of any religion.

Salam Al-Marayati is director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.