NJDC Calls on Americans to Resist Stereotyping of Arab and Muslim Americans Following Tragic Attacks
Listed in: Other Domestic Policy, NJDC News, Press Releases
Washington, DC: The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) today called upon the American people to cherish our proud democratic character and defend Arab and Muslim Americans against xenophobia and stereotyping following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The NJDC made its plea following reports from around the country detailing hate crimes and harassment directed at Arab and Muslim Americans in the wake of Tuesday's events.
"We have full faith that American security and military forces will discover and punish the parties responsible for this week's travesties," stated NJDC Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "The American people are understandably angry, and they want to be assuaged by the capture of the masterminds and perpetrators of these attacks. But we must not exact vengeance on our Muslim and Arab American neighbors. They, no less than the rest of us, shuddered in horror at the images of carnage and destruction on our soil. Contrary to some unfortunate and inappropriate stereotypes, the overwhelming majority of Arab Americans and American adherents of Islam condemn violence and terrorism.
"We are disturbed that a small minority of Americans have tried to deal with their pain by attacking Muslims and Arab Americans, their homes and their mosques. As Jews, we remember all too well what it is like to be victims of guilt-by-ethnicity. From the pogroms in Eastern Europe to the Dreyfus affair in France to the horrors of the Holocaust, Jews were terrorized, not for what they had done, but for who they were. It is especially incumbent upon us to call for an absolute halt to dehumanizing remarks and actions against our Arab American and Muslim countrymen.
"During World War I, German Americans were shamelessly persecuted as enemies in our midst. In World War II, we imprisoned Japanese Americans for the 'sin' of being Japanese. We now face a long twilight struggle against terrorism, in which we will have to tirelessly go after those who perpetrate these heinous acts, and those who harbor them, whether they are here or abroad. But in so doing, we must never persecute any American based upon their ethnicity or their religious faith."
