Muslims Remain Focus of Much American Anger

Ray Hanania
Wed, 03 Feb 2016 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

As President Barack Obama addressed a congregation of American Muslims and Arabs at the Islamic Society of Baltimore Mosque on Wednesday, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rage were taking form in a suburb of Chicago.

In Palos Park, the Muslim American Society has purchased an abandoned Christian church, and plans to convert it into a mosque for prayer and religious activities.

It's not the first time that Americans publicly denounced the opening of a mosque in an abandoned Christian church property. It's happened many times throughout the United States, including two other times within six miles of Palos Park.
Updated: Thu Feb 04, 2016

As President Barack Obama addressed a congregation of American Muslims and Arabs at the Islamic Society of Baltimore Mosque on Wednesday, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rage were taking form in a suburb of Chicago.

In Palos Park, the Muslim American Society has purchased an abandoned Christian church, and plans to convert it into a mosque for prayer and religious activities.

It's not the first time that Americans publicly denounced the opening of a mosque in an abandoned Christian church property. It's happened many times throughout the United States, including two other times within six miles of Palos Park.

Foes of the mosque are circulating flyers claiming that if the mosque is built, Muslims will be swarming their schools, wearing burqas in their public swimming pools and choking the streets with their traffic.

Never mind that there are already more than 100 Christian churches in the six-mile radius of the proposed new mosque; there are only two other mosques in the same region, one in Bridgeview and one in Orland Park.

But like most of America, Chicagoland has a history of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism that has created an environment of hostility. I blame some of our elected officials who have exploited growing American fears of Islam fanned by one-sided stories in the mainstream American news media for their own political benefit.

People like Mayor Rahm Emanuel are to blame. The very first thing that Emanuel did when he was elected mayor of Chicago in 2011 was to pull the rug out from under the Arabesque Festival, which was only four years old. Officials of several American-Jewish organizations had been complaining to Emanuel's predecessor, Mayor Richard M. Daley, that the festival included pro-Palestinian information, but Daley declined to respond to the clearly political attacks.

Emanuel, however, was quick to shut the door to Chicago's Arabs, reaching out to non-Arab Muslims to attend city-sponsored events.

Mayor Emanuel has refused to sit down with me to answer questions or offer his side of the story about his actions. (I covered Chicago City Hall and seven mayors from 1976 to 1992.) An aide told me once Emanuel was angry because I criticized him for serving in the Israeli military as a volunteer while not serving or volunteering for the U.S. military. I served in the U.S. military active duty honorably during the Vietnam War and the issue is important.

I don't blame Emanuel for being afraid of that issue. It is shameful for any American to serve a foreign country and not do the same for this country.

There are others, though, including two Illinois legislators, State Senator Ira Silverstein and State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz who place the needs of a foreign country ahead of those of the rights of American citizens. Both have also declined to respond to interview requests.

Illinois legislators have so many other important issues that need to be addressed, but Silverstein and Feigenholtz used their powers to play partisan politics on issues involving a foreign country, Israel. Still, no one would have objected if they introduced a resolution urging both sides of the conflict to pursue peace. Instead, Silverstein and Feigenholtz introduced a politically motivated bill that punishes American citizens in Illinois who criticize Israel's oppressive discrimination against Muslims and Christians in the occupied West Bank by boycotting products made in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

Most recently, though, several Republican candidates for president have targeted Muslims in their incendiary rhetoric. It's not just Donald Trump who has been insensitive to minorities including Muslims. But many Republicans have tried to use Trump to distract from their own intolerant rhetoric and anti-Muslim xenophobia.

They include Ben Carson, former Governor Mike Huckabee, former Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Ted Cruz — who once told Muslims and Christian Arabs that if they criticized Israel then they were "enemies of America." The list of Republicans who have embraced Islamaphobia for political gain is endless.

The Palos Park mosque will undoubtedly open, despite the rising anger. The only saving grace is that despite the inability of the racism to quell, there has been a higher awareness of the problem among many Americans who reject racism and Islamaphobia.

President Obama told a gathering of Muslims and the media at the Baltimore Islamic Center that Muslims are "our neighbors." And despite the racism, they have the same rights as all Americans.

"Muslim Americans enrich our lives — they're our neighbors — the teachers who inspire our children," Obama said during his mosque speech. "We are one American family. We will rise and fall together ... As we go forward, I want every Muslim American to remember that ... your fellow Americans stand with you ... You are not Muslim or American. You are Muslim and American."

Maybe Obama's words need to be heard by Emanuel, Silverstein and Feigenholtz, and even Trump, Palin, Huckabee and Cruz. But I doubt they would listen.

The voices of good are sometimes not as loud as the strident cries of the fanatics. But in America, I have faith that goodwill, humanity and morality will overpower injustice, racism and stereotypes.