[(Continued from p.10)]
Kofi Annan, taking time from his busy social whirl, has brought the world's attention to the pressing "twin" problems of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. This linkage is now requisite among public officials who denounce anti-Semitism.
The dictionary defines anti-Semitism as "hostility and prejudice to Jews." Historically it is associated with Belzec, Dachau, and Auschwitz, but there is a millennium of murder and dislocation in Europe before this.
Currently, anti-Semitism is manifested in harassment, vilification, physical assaults, and murder of Jews, including terrorism and bombings of synagogues and communal Jewish institutions in Europe, Asia, and South America. It is manifested in Muslim countries in sermons, school texts, broadcasts, and newspapers. These examples of visceral hatred for Jews run the gamut from cartoons, depicting Jews as apes, to calls for "death to the Jews." UN assemblies, as well as affiliated organizations and conferences almost always degenerate into Jew-baiting.
In America, anti-Semitism is especially evident among tenured professors in universities as disparate as Notre Dame, Columbia University, and state colleges throughout the South and West. A recent report on San Francisco State University by Tatiana Menaker in FrontPageMagaine.com describes the anti-Israel activities "organized on campus so frequently that an innocent visitor would think that he had landed in some Syrian university run by Hamas."
Now, what about "Islamophobia," a word not included in the dictionary? The word phobia is defined as an "irrational fear or aversion." If anyone can discover people who are motivated by an irrational hatred of Muslims rather than a well based fear of those, who, prompted by the tenets of Islam, attempt to murder infidels wherever they may be, by all means let them bring such examples forward and all decent people will distance themselves.
The events of September 11th, 2001, were planned, executed, and praised by Muslims -- mainly Arabs. Muslims bombed our embassies, Marine barracks, the S.S. Cole, and have planned many more attacks which have been thwarted. Muslims have killed more Americans than any group or state since the end of the Vietnam War. Furthermore, as Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis, Robert Spencer, and dozens of other experts have written, this fanatical hatred of the "infidel" is incited and encouraged by imams and mullahs throughout the Muslim world. It is also based on texts that are included in the Koran and hadith.
Nonetheless, in his stirring speeches following the 9/11 attacks, President Bush made a point of stressing that the "terrorists hijacked a great religion," most of whose adherents were decent and peace loving folks. Prime Minister Blair continues to fall all over himself explaining that Islam is a great religion, and that those who use it for violent ends are engaged in a "perversion" of the Muslim faith.
In his unflagging effort to reassure American Arabs and other Muslims, the president invited a number of their leaders to White House teas, lunches, and meetings. In fact, in his zeal to do so, he inadvertently invited several who were subsequently exposed for funding terrorist organizations.
It is not Islamophobia that Mr. Annan should worry about, but rather the death cult among Muslims that converts youngsters into suicide bombers, and then sings their praises.
Where, then, is this Islamophobia that so exercises Mr. Annan? There is no rampant hatred of Muslims in America or in the European nations in which they are a growing presence. No mosques have been torched; no Christian clergy rail against Muslims with death threats; no mainline media or broadcasts ridicule or revile them; no faculty perverts historical fact to instigate fear and prejudice against them. On the contrary, faculties bend over backwards in order to present a benign view of Arabs at the expense of Israel, and students are force-fed Bowdlerized versions of the Koran.
America, and in fact Israel, responded with immediate offers of aid after the quake in Iran which killed and dislocated tens of thousands of Muslims. American soldiers protect Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo and liberated Iraqi Muslims from decades of rule by a murderous tyrant. Americans and members of the coalition are rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan while protecting even those citizens who overtly criticize and threaten our armed forces and those who supported Saddam. American taxpayers are ready to spend billions is rebuilding Muslim nations.
Muslims are most at risk from their own internecine rivalries. It is not Islamophobia that Mr.Annan should worry about, but rather the death cult among Muslims that converts youngsters into suicide bombers, and then sings their praises and names teams, streets, and clubs in their honor. It is the fanatic urge to kill the infidels rather than to build a civil society that should concern Kofi Annan.
Yes, Mr. Annan threw a bone to the Jews, but continues to indulge and protect the brigands, rogues, and dictators who threaten Jews, Christians, Western democracies and civilization.
Ruth King is a member of the executive committee of Americans For a Safe Israel.
February 2004 - 11 - Outpost