American_Jihad
Flaming Libs/Koranimals
The Islamophobia myth
By Jeff Jacoby
12/8/10
When that provocative question appeared on the cover of Time in August, the accompanying story strained to imply, on the basis of some anecdotal evidence, that the answer might be yes. The FBIs latest compendium of US hate-crimes data suggests far more plausibly that the answer is no.
...
Of course not. Even one hate crime is one too many, but in a nation of 300 million, all of the religious-based hate crimes added together amount to less than a drop in the bucket. This is not to minimize the 964 hate crimes perpetrated against Jews last year, or those carried out against Muslims (128), Catholics (55), or Protestants (40). Some of those attacks were especially shocking or destructive; all of them should be punished. But surely the most obvious takeaway from the FBIs statistics is not that anti-religious hate crimes are so frequent in America. It is that they are so rare.
In a column a few years back, I wrote that America has been for the Jews a safe harbor virtually without parallel. It has proved much the same for Muslims. Of course there is tension and hostility sometimes. How could there not be, when America is at war with violent jihadists who have done so much harm in the name of Islam? But for American Muslims as for American Jews, the tension and hostility are the exception. Americas exemplary tolerance is the rule.
The ‘Islamophobia’ myth - The Boston Globe