Understand anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim bigotry

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/09/understand_anti-semitism_and_anti-muslim_bigotry.html

Understand anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim bigotry

By Yaman Salahi
In a recent On Faith posting, Rabbi Shmully Hecht of Eliezer, a Jewish student society at Yale University, criticized a column I wrote for the Yale Daily News. Sadly, Hecht employed a tactic that has become increasingly familiar in American discussions about Arabs, Muslims, and Islam. In my column, I argued that a conference sponsored by the Yale Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism undermined the lessons to be learned from anti-Semitism because it hosted a variety of speakers with a reputation for promoting racist ideas about Arabs and Muslims. My message was simple: you cannot fight anti-Semitism without also fighting racism against Arabs and Muslims. Racism is wrong because of what it does, not because of whom it targets.

I refer to the myopic view that asserts that Islam is the main impetus behind everything a Muslim does or believes. Accordingly, nearly every feature of Muslim life and political activity can be attributed primarily if not exclusively to religion. This approach makes the crucial mistake of treating Islam like a rigid, fixed set of norms and practices when, in fact, the way Muslims conceive of their religion is ever-changing and contingent on a variety of other factors. More importantly...READ MORE