A little, anyway. In this article by Janet Tu, the Times admits that local Jews and Muslims do not always get on perfectly.
In the days immediately following the recent shootings at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, there was much talk of interfaith unity.
Local Muslim leaders condemned the acts of a man who barged into the federation offices and, according to witnesses, announced himself as a Muslim American angry at Israel before shooting six people, killing one. Local Jewish leaders spoke of the sympathy they received from Muslim friends. Jews, Muslims and Christians attended the funeral of Pamela Waechter, the woman killed.
But some of those same leaders acknowledge that the gulf between the local Jewish and Muslim communities remains as wide as ever.
This is, I suppose, better than the absurd claim in the headline to the Times lead story of July 30th that the "Community responds with sorrow, unity". (Illustrated with a photograph that was, in my opinion, intended to deceive.)
But only a little better. The Times has a long way to go before it catches up with Sound Politics. It is a fact — even though it may never appear in the Seattle Times — that at least a few local Muslims approved of the attack on the Jewish Federation. It is a fact — even though it may never appear in the Seattle Times — that a somewhat larger number of local Muslims had mixed feelings about the attack. Having said those things, I must immediately add that, as far as I can tell, most local Muslims disapproved of the attack, and disapprove of terrorism in general. But not all.
(I apologize for being vague, but I must be, because our journalists and poll takers are so unwilling to investigate these questions. And although I can do some independent journalism, I do not have the skills needed to investigate our local mosques, or the money needed to do a poll. If you wonder what might be learned by such an investigation, you should look at Steven Emerson's American Jihad. And if you wonder what might be learned from polls, you might look at some of the polls of British Muslims.)
But even a small improvement is welcome. And, as one who would like to see our local newspapers improve, I will suggest one line of questioning that Ms. Tu might pursue the next time she talks to Jeff Siddiqui and other spokesmen for local Muslims. Why, Ms. Tu might ask, are they so concerned about the deaths of a few hundred Palestinian Muslims, and so indifferent to the deaths of more than a million Sudanese? And if Ms. Tu is a bold reporter, she might follow up with this question: Would Siddiqui care about those deaths in the Sudan if they were caused, not by Muslims, but by Jews or Christians? You can suggest more questions that Tu and other local journalists might ask in the comments below, if those journalists wish us to take their stories on this subject seriously.
(As most of you know, I have combined two Sudanese conflicts, the long running civil war between the northerm and southern parts of the Sudan, and the more recent civil war between Darfur and the rest of the Sudan. In the first, most of the victims have been the animist and Christian blacks of southern Sudan; in the second most of the victims have been Muslims, but black Muslims. In both conflicts, the main agressors have been Arabic speaking Muslims. Thanks to pressure from the Bush administration, the first conflict may have been settled. The second still goes on.
You can find related Sound Politics posts here, here, here, here, here, and here. Ms. Tu — and other local journalists — might find the last two, which discuss Siddiqui's thinking, especially interesting.)
Posted by Jim Miller at August 23, 2006 07:40 AM | Email ThisThere were some links posted here earlier of photos of Muslims walking by the shooting site and giving it the finger. A real investigative newspaper would be out getting the real story...but it's much easier to continue to front the lie that Seattle is the most tolerant city in North America.
Posted by: Steve_dog on August 23, 2006 08:15 AMJeff Siddiqui appeared on Michael Medved's show on Monday. I missed some of the conversation but what I did hear seemed to consist mostly of Siddiqui trying to turn the conversation into a discussion of "Christian terrorism". A typical Siddiqui response when asked about Muslim acts of terrorism, "But Michael what about Christians that bomb abortion clinics?"
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on August 23, 2006 08:30 AMSure, let's look the other way whilst Jews are slaughtered. Great idea!
It worked so well in the 1930s and 1940s, why not try it again?
Ever visited Oswieciem, Libertarian? It's this little hamlet outside Krakow, Poland. You may know it by its German name - Auschwitz. Check it out sometime, and take a walk through your future.
Posted by: Larry on August 23, 2006 09:08 AMThe subject of this post is the Seattle Times' coverage of local Muslims. Those who wish to discuss other issues are welcome to go elsewhere.
Posted by: Jim Miller on August 23, 2006 09:22 AMthe question i did not get to ask Jeff--just what--EXACTLY--is your Community and or World Bretheren doing to TURN IN these terrorists living among you? I don't see that happening;
like the Resistance in WW2 handling enemy corroborators & traitors among themselves; I don't see that "Community" rising up and denying aid & comnfort to those they supposedly do not support;
i hear a lot of apologies and condemnations, but none with REAL action & passion to support those 'feelings of outrage;' walk the talk; true--some silence may be from fear of the evil ones themselves or of being accused of betraying their Community; who knows;
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on August 23, 2006 09:56 AMThe Muslims never gave a zip about the Palestinians until the the jew state was created.
They were nothing but second class people.
Man how wrong can you be.
1. Roust and arrest the extremists in their midst and agressively denounce them.
2. Openly and actively work to denounce all terrorists (yes they are muslims folks, do the math) and hate speach among themselves and in public.
3. Denounce the murder of innocents for any reason and recognize we all have the right to live. Ya, especially Jews you morons.
4. Admit they are the only "faith" that openly advocates murder then rebuke and remove that from their doctrines......
THEY ARE ALL TERRORISTS SAFELY LUMPED INTO THE SAME CATAGORY. IF YOU DON'T DO THE ACT BUT BY LACK OF ACTION OR TRUE CONDEMNATION CONDONE IT, WHAT IS THE FREAKIN DIFFERENCE ?
Posted by: pbs7mm on August 23, 2006 10:43 AMUntil Muslims acknowledge and begin to own their problem, it will continue to be a world scourge. And it will only be so long before the Western world stops tolerating, appeasing and engaging in diplomatic attempts to stem the wave of terror that is the direct result of the sanctioned preaching of Violent Hatred by official organized Islam. After that, the West will finally rise up with lethal force upon large Muslim populations.
It isn't between Israel and Palistine anymore. It hasn't been for years. Muslim extremists are all over the world. They have significant populations in Africa, Indonesia and the Phillipines Islands, Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, and they are working hard on establishing themselves in North and South America. They don't just hate American, they hate any race of people who do NOT convert to their religion.
Posted by: sgmmac on August 23, 2006 01:20 PMSadly, it doesn't work that way. You can't just ignore them and hope they'll go away. They won't. They are intent on ruling the world under their Imams.
World War II proved that you can't ignore bad people hell bent on world domination. Many governments in Europe signed peace treaties with Hitler. He violated all of the treaties and went after the countries one by one, while the US watched in silence.
Over 12 million died during the US silence!
Posted by: sgmmac on August 23, 2006 02:50 PMPosted by sgmmac at August 23, 2006 02:50 PM
==========
And Stalin killed over 20,000,000 in the USSR, but the Russians still love him.
So, sgmmac, what would you do? Sounds like you are leaning towards a pre-emptive strike agains Islamo-crazies.
If we're gonna do it, then let's do it. I'm sick of the Israelis and the Muslims and their relgious war.
Posted by: Libertarian on August 23, 2006 02:54 PMThat would have been sufficient to convince the Islamo-crazies that we're not part of their little religious fantasy concerning a "12th imam" or whatever.
Posted by: Libertarian on August 23, 2006 03:46 PMOkay, where did the 12 million number come from? Unless something has been radically altered, I was under the assumption that the generally accepted figure was 6 million.
6 million people is a tragic and horrible loss of human life, but let's not forget who played a large part in helping it end - namely, the United States of America. If there's one card that should never be rubbed in our face, it's that one. Every time I hear someone, Jew or non-Jew (my sister converted to Judaism and I converted to Islam so you can imagine how that goes) start crying out "the HOLOCAUST!" to justify every action, I always seem to have to point out that yes it was bad and WE made it stop. I'm adopted, and my adopted grandfather, one Capt. Richard Bush, commanded a company that liberated one of the camps over there and couldn't even bring himself to talk about it after the war because of what he had seen there. Growing up we had a couple of old WWII German mausers in my parent's closet and before I was old enough to ask for them my grandmother had donated them to a museum in Israel. Seems they were captured off of Waffen SS troops.
So as for Israel, we have done our part.
As for you people blabbing on and on about the need for regular Muslims to denounce violent radicals, I think that you need to step outside your comfort zone for a minute and think who you are talking about. Violent Islamic radicals are the kind of people who pack SUVs full of explosives and wait for passing American patrols to hand out candy so they can DRIVE INTO CROWDS OF CHILDREN AND DETONATE THEMSELVES. That may seem a bit intimidating to most people, so while they do not agree with the violent jihadis, they often feels very powerless to stop them, perhaps even enough so to try to mentally justify their heinous acts.
These sorts of things very rarely happen in the states, but on the whole I would say the US has a much, much lower incidence of crazy fanatics. As such, there's not as much need to shout down the crazies here because there just aren't that many of them. That might sound kind of weak in the aftermath of this shooting, but you need to put things in perspective - white supremacist "Christian" organizations have been robbing banks and burning synagogues and shooting people for years. Supposedly "Pro-life" fundies have been bombing clinics and assissinating doctors for years.
Now someone is obviously going to make the point that "They didn't drive planes into buildings!" which is a very good and true point. The people who did perpetrate that heinous act were muslims, yes, but they were also NOT AMERICANS. These were foreigners who came to our shores with this deadly intent and took advantage of our open society. Perhaps you don't hear a lot of local muslim outrage because most don't feel neccesary to apologize for the acts of non-Americans? All politics is local, in the end, maybe I shouldn't have to worry about whether or not some half-assed supposed muslim is going to come to the states from Iran or Syria or Saudi Arabia and commit a terrorist act. Maybe that's because I wasn't complicit in the act in any way, shape, or form and was just much a target on that day as anyone else.
Which brings us to Saudi Arabia. Boy, why we don't grab that place by the small and curlies I'll never know. If there's ever one place we ought to threaten with nukes, that might be the place. The small fact that most of the Sept. 11 highjackers were Saudi nationals should have been enought to warrant at least a warning shot. We could've called it an accidental detonation or some such.
Posted by: Aaron on August 23, 2006 07:20 PMArabs Muslims have managed to tie Arab culture to Islam, thereby attempting to foist their desire for a return to power (in a political sense) off as an element of the religion.
In Islam, the Q'uran is supposed to be the final authority; the word of Allah handed down to Mohammed through Gabriel. However, most Muslims still follow Shari'a, which is a set of laws concoted and based off of a blend of the Sunnah - a book of the prophet's traditions - and fiqhs, which are basically classical opinions of Arab scholars. You can see where Arab influence is incredibly heavy in Islam. Modern day Arabs tend to try and exert and/or pervert this influence to to try shape the religion as a whole and influence non-Arabic people.
Most muslims would consider this heretical, but I subscribe to a theory more in line with the Qur'an Alone school of thought. Hit Wikipedia up for details.
Posted by: Aaron on August 23, 2006 09:30 PMIt's the organized preaching of hatred that is the problem. Go read a few books by Kenneth Timmerman who is one of the premier Middle Eastern reasearchers at this time. Bottom line is in the Middle East, what you have is a volatile combination of both government and church sponsored preaching of hatred mixed with theocracies based around Sharia. This is government sponsored preaching and dissemination of violence in mosques and madraahsahs all throughout the Middle East every day. And clear Theocracies organized around a violent ideology.
Although there is nothing like those government structures here in the US, we are also open enough with our separation of church and state and our freedom of speech to allow mosques which cater to the spread of the violent ideology. Not as bad as the UK, but it is in our midst.
The solution is to force the Middle Eastern governments to own their problem of sponsoring and permitting the dissemination of hatred on a national level. If Middle Eastern governments were given the ultimatum of rooting through their mullahs and mosques and stopping the preaching of hatred, or facing a lethal destructive blow from the West, the matter would be much more focused.
Instead, we are allowing our innocent civilians and those of the Middle East and other parts of the world to become future justification for the final and lethal use of massive Western destructive force against the quasi legitimate Middle Eastern states.
It would make far more sense to act now before there is another 9/11. But in today's politically correct world, no one hypnotized by the left can fathom the moral use of force.
Posted by: Jeff B. on August 23, 2006 10:50 PM"Okay, where did the 12 million number come from? Unless something has been radically altered, I was under the assumption that the generally accepted figure was 6 million."
Actually, the figure I quoted is too low. I researched 10 years or so ago one night after finding a swastika painted in one of our male latrines, so I needed the information to put out to our soldiers about Nazi's and Hitler.
There are 12 million deaths listed as a direct result of the Holocaust and they are IN ADDITION to the 6 million Jewish deaths.
Wikipedia has nice charts and fairly good numbers on it.
The reason I said that figure is too low is because the UK and the US waited several YEARS before joining in to stop Hitler. Country after country in Europe signed treaties with Hitler thinking they were safe and then they were attacked by him.
Millions and Millions died while the world watched. Those who tried to appease Hitler and entered into peace talks with him, died!
Over 62 million people died in WWII.......
Posted by: sgmmac on August 23, 2006 11:49 PMSee my comments regarding the same faulty argument Jeff Siddiqui uses above (#2).
This "well, Christians are just as bad" argument is more than pathetic. And to be specific, Aaron, which "Christian" organizations are you referring to?
Are you saying that there are not self-proclaimed fundamentalist Christian groups that have comitted bombings against abortion clinics?
Please remember Bill that I converted to Islam. I was born into a fmaily of Jehovah's Witnesses and was baptised a christian at age 14. I've read most of the Bible and bits of the Torah along with the opening suras of the Qur'an (my penchant for alcholic beverages often prevents me from laying hands on the book, but then I work 60 hours a week).
I'm not talking out of my ass, Bill. What I'm saying is that there is a wide spectrum of activities and beliefs, and that singling in on one narrow band of the spectrum and using it as a club against the entire remainder of the spectrum is silly. I could no more blame you, Bill, for supporting terrorism than you can me.
And yet you seem to argue that because I don't say some magical words of atonement or apology or go beat up a cleric, I'm somehow in the wrong. That's just plain un-American. Remember that freedom of speech bit? Siqqidi is free to pray how and when he chooses and say whatever he damn well pleases, as is every citizen of the United States. When people cross the realm into action, then they deserve and ought to be held accountable for those actions. If I somehow had forewarning or advance knowledge of some insidious plot somehow due to my telepathic communications link to fellow Muslims, I would not only warn authorities but would undertake everything in my power to end the threat, including the use of lethal force. I didn't spend 5 years in uniform learning how to knit. That being said, I think it's rather heavy-handed to simply start presuming everyone guilty because of what religion they might happen to be, don't you?
Posted by: Aaron on August 24, 2006 10:18 AMI simply disagree with your viewpoint. Or is that not allowed?
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on August 24, 2006 11:20 AMWe all know that you are moslem, and I have no problem with that, per se. Your rhetoric is white-hot however, and full of equivocations and rationalizations ("white supremacist "Christian" organizations have been robbing banks and burning synagogues and shooting people for years." Get real!) This makes me wonder if you are as comfortable with your choice as you let on.
I have a friend that dresses and behaves very counter-culturalish. She then complains about the sideways glances and whispered comments that come as a result. I finally asked her "Do you like how you look?" She says "Yes".
"Then who cares what other people think?!"
If you are comfortable with your choice of religious beliefs, why care what anyone else thinks? Fact is, It is my belief that islam is a savage, barbaric death cult, (and as long as other moslems allow the lunatic fringe to usurp their religion that will remain the popular perception) but then that's just my opinion. So what?
Please feel free to continue to enjoy your religion (at least as long as the "fringies" allow you to ;'}
Posted by: alphabet soup on August 24, 2006 01:10 PMYou unimaginably arrogant bastard.
The majority of U.S. soldiers initially sent to crush the Nazi war machine had been away from their families for a MINIMUM of 2 YEARS PRIOR TO D-Day. You don't simply deploy 100's of thousands of recruits just out of BT and drop them into Poland to liberate death camps only to be surrounded and slaughtered by battle-hardened Nazis who basically owned an entire CONTINENT. Does BLITZKRIEG ring a bell with you?
My Great Uncle was MIA then KIA after the B-24 he piloted augered into the Adriatic Sea just shy of the Italian coast line in November of 1944. His name is on a plaque (along with the other crew members)at the Tomb of the Unknowns in the cemetery in Florence Italy.
As far as I'm concerned: You just spit on his plaque and those of his crewmates.
How dare you Monday morning QB 60+ years later. They gave their lives so that you could arrogantly and callously excercise your freedom of speech.
My Grandfather served honorably in the 99th Division as an infantry soldier (80mm mortarman) from the Battle of the Bulge until VE Day. He's buried at the cemetery in Renton. Like to spit on his plaque as well?
Posted by: YourLifeIsMyFault on August 24, 2006 01:33 PM"You unimaginably arrogant bastard." I have been called a lot of names in my life, but bastard isn't one of them. I have been called a bitch many times.
I would hardly spit on any soldier's grave either. I am a pro military as they come, since I served in the Army for 30 years and 2 combat zones.
But that doesn't change history. Historians agree that the US and the UK should have entered the war years earlier.
Dachau opened in Jun 1933. That's 11 years before your uncle died and Dachau was NOT the first German concentration camp. I have pictures of Dachau that were taken by my X husband. The pictures of the ovens sends chills up my spine every time I see them. There is a garden whose soil is pitch black after all these years....
The first American Forces arrived in Great Britian in Jan 1942.
The whole point of my post was that America slept while Nazi Germany did that Blitzkrieg across the continent of Europe. Like when I said above: "World War II proved that you can't ignore bad people hell bent on world domination. Many governments in Europe signed peace treaties with Hitler. He violated all of the treaties and went after the countries one by one, while the US watched in silence."
Had we entered the war years earlier millions would have been saved, but instead 62 million died to include your Uncle and your Grandfather.
When countries go to war is a political decision and has nothing to do with the soldiers serving. They don't get to decide when to go or not go.
Have a Great Day and be proud of your Uncle and your Grandfater, they earned it.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m26059&hd=0&size=1&l=x
Posted by: Peggy U on August 25, 2006 04:31 PMhttp://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15714
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on August 25, 2006 05:32 PMhttp://www.uruknet.info/?p=23394
Posted by: Peggy U on August 25, 2006 06:27 PMPosted by: Bill Cruchon on August 25, 2006 06:43 PM