The angry tide against Muslims

The sustained outcry against the Islamic Community Centre two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City is not the first time US Muslims have been on the defensive. During the 1990s, long before 9/1l, they were suffering discrimination in the workplace and often the target of physical threat and attack. Places of worship were the target of vandalism and crude graffiti, and sometimes arson.

While lecturing across America during those years, I became convinced that anti-Muslim passions based on false stereotypes are a cancer that threatens the well-being of all Americans, not just followers of Islam. At home, they nurture bigotry and fear. In the Middle East, they are a massive roadblock to balanced, fair US policies.

Hoping to ease these dangerous passions I wrote Silent No More: Confronting America's False Images of Islam, a book inspired by personal acquaintance with hundreds of Muslims at home and abroad.

It was published one month before 9/11, the day professed Muslims carried out the horrible suicide bombings in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans. The bombings were a gross violation of Islamic doctrine, which condemns suicide and injury to innocent people, but they left millions of misinformed Americans convinced Muslims approved the massacre.

Three years later, a Cornell University poll disclosed 44 per cent of those surveyed were so apprehensive about Islam they wanted the civil liberties of all US Muslims curtailed. This year, Gallup polls reported nearly half of American citizens fearful of Islamic intentions.

At the same time, anti-American passions have risen worldwide, especially in Muslim countries. The US government makes no effort to explain why foreigners protest its policies. Nor does it lift a finger to correct legitimate Muslim grievances.

Nine-eleven was payback by a few people infuriated over America's pro-Israel bias. Anti-American protests rise mainly from the same bias: US complicity in Israel's brutal treatment of mostly-Muslim Palestinians and its illegal seizure of their land. Wars initiated by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Muslim countries, magnified the outrage.

Although Israel's daily conduct clearly violates international law, massive, unconditional US aid keeps flowing to Tel Aviv.

Violent disagreement

The chief planner of 9/11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, plainly and publicly stated his motivation. It was his "violent disagreement with US policies that favoured Israel." This significant revelation was buried in the report of the 9/11 Commission but mentioned nowhere else. The commission twice voted against holding hearings on motivation.

Nothing could justify 9/11, but the American people deserve to know why it happened and why the US government made no serious effort to stop Israel's criminal policies.

If the US government had refused to help Israel when it decided to destroy Palestine and brutalise its people, 9/11 would not have happened, the US government would not have started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Israel would not have been able to carry out its illegal takeover of Arab land. The main motivations for anti-Muslim passions in the United States and anti-American passions would not exist.

The revelation by the chief planner of 9/11 should have served as a wake-up call for every American, but the members of the president-appointed 9/11 Commission, like most other Americans, tip-toed in silent retreat rather than embarrass Israel and risk being called anti-Semitic.

It is never too late to do the right thing. The US president should suspend all aid until Israeli forces withdraw from all Arab territory seized in June 1967. Barack Obama — any president — will win massive public support for this showdown if he explains the crisis in clear language directly to the American people. Based on my years in Congress, where I was a close witness of presidents in crisis, I know Obama could prevail. Congress is populated with puppets for Israel, but enlightened public opinion will change their behaviour overnight.

Future historians will be amazed at the utter stupidity of the US government. Rather than end bias in Middle East policy, American officials keep their nation in the black hole of war, fear, hate and bankruptcy.

Paul Findley was a member of Congress, 1961-83. He resides in Jacksonville and is the author of six books, his latest, a memoir, will be published in April. Sales of his bestseller, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby, now exceed 300,000 copies.