Combatting the anti-Arab stereotype

Almost as soon as the hideous news broke in Oklahoma City lastweek, an insistent media drumbeat began: Don't condemn Muslims.Don't scapegoat Arab-Americans. Don't assume this crime has a MiddleEastern connection.

As far as anyone knows, of course, this crime doesn't have aMiddle Eastern connection. It appears the monster responsible forbutchering and maiming hundreds of innocent souls is an all-American,home-grown monster, not one imported from abroad. The bigots andpinheads who couldn't wait to jump on the Internet or call a radiostation to spew xenophobic slurs demonstrated once again that it isbetter to keep silent and let people think you're a fool than to openyour mouth and prove it.

But since when do the media inveigh against jumping toconclusions? That grave concern for the reputation and welfare of areligion -- what a rarity that was! As for scapegoating -- wasn't itjust a few months ago that my media sisters and brothers wereexplaining why the entire prolife movement was to blame for theBrookline abortion clinic murders?

The chorus was singing a different tune on this one. The Globe("Muslims Fear Being Made Scapegoats") and Los Angeles Times ("MuslimCommunity is Target of Threats, Abuse") put it right on Page 1. Otherpapers played it big inside, including The New York Times ("FearAbout Retaliation Among Muslim Groups"), Boston Herald ("IslamicCommunity Concerned for Safety"), USA Today ("Arab-Americans OnceAgain Targets"), Chicago Tribune ("Muslim, Middle Eastern CommunitiesFear Backlash"), and Philadelphia Inquirer ("Fallout Hits Some ArabAmericans").

Broadcast echoed print. TV networks, local affiliates, cablestations -- all of them took pains to defend the honor of Islam. Onetalking head after another voiced dismay at the speculation thatMuslims or Arabs were responsible for the bombing.

Isn't something missing here?

One who belongs to the most vilified and persecuted minority inhistory -- to borrow a phrase from the late Supreme Court JusticeFelix Frankfurter -- is not likely to underestimate the ugliness ofthe blood libel or minimize the dread it evokes in innocent people.No one but an ignoramus could believe that most Arabs in America areany less peaceable than their neighbors, or any more apt to beinvolved in terrorism.

(If anything, an American Arab or Muslim is more likely to be thevictim of a hate crime than the perpetrator. Anti-Arab violence inAmerica is rare, but it occurs. In 1985, a bomb blew up theCalifornia office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee,killing regional director Alex Odeh. Two months earlier, a pipe bombexploded outside the ADC's Boston office. And mosques have beenattacked in Houston and Los Angeles.)

But let's be honest. It wasn't exactly implausible to supposethat the carnage in Oklahoma City might be the work of Arabs orMuslims. When Americans are murdered by terrorists, after all, Arabsor Muslims are nearly always the killers. For example, the WorldTrade Center. The Marines in their bunker. All those college kidsover Lockerbie. The Beirut hostages who didn't survive. RobbieStethem, the Navy diver on TWA 847. Leon Klinghoffer in hiswheelchair. The two US diplomats assassinated in Khartoum. Ohioweightlifter David Berg, who went to the Olympics and returned in acoffin. Alisa Flatow of Brandeis University, bombed in Gaza on herspring vacation.

The great majority of Arabs and Muslims the world over live quietlives and menace nobody. But a significant subset of Islam, thefundamentalists, is on the march -- preaching jihad, demonizingAmerica, gunning down tourists, and practicing terror. Last week,many US Muslim leaders made a point of insisting that Islam is apeaceful and nonviolent religion. Yet time and time again, fanaticscommit bloody enormities in Allah's name -- and sheiks and mullahsegg them on. And time and time again, one strains to hear any wordof condemnation or revulsion or sorrow from America's Muslim and Arabspokesmen.

There are some people "of Middle Eastern extraction" in thiscountry who dream of blowing up World Trade Centers. There are farmore who dream the American Dream. It might be easier todifferentiate between the two if the latter made it a point todenounce and express loathing of the former a little more often. Notjust when parties unknown kill innocent children in Oklahoma, andAmerican Arabs fear they might be scapegoated. The time to speak outis when Islamic fundamentalists or Palestinian extremists killinnocent children in Tel Aviv or over Lockerbie or on a Nile cruiseship, and nobody is blaming American Arabs.

If Islam truly abominates violence, American Muslims should say so-- loudly, unambiguously -- when violence is done by men professingIslam. If American Arabs don't want to be stereotyped as supportersof terrorism, they are obliged to cry out in anger and disgustwhenever Arab terrorism occurs. Their hesitation to do so callstheir credibility into question, and spawns the stereotypes they mostwant to avoid.