Ethnic Minorities Have Just Cause to Fear Violence in America, Not Jews
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Gun violence in America happens with disturbing regularity – Jews targeted like Saturday in Pittsburgh an aberration, not a sign of worrisome anti-Semitism.
Criticizing Zionism and Israel is unrelated to anti-Semitism and hate-mongering. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Anti-Semitism reflects hostility or discrimination against Judaism as a religion. Israel is a nation-state.
Criticizing its persecution of Palestinians, its wars of aggression, its terror-bombing of Syrian targets, its support for ISIS and other jihadists, and its neoliberal harshness is justifiable and essential.
Anti-Semitism in the West is a shadow of its pre-WW II level. Jews are safe from persecution, not endangered.
Except for street gang and related violence, Blacks, Latinos, other people of color, Muslims, and adherents of other non-Judeo-Christian religions in America and other Western countries have much to fear – most often victims of violence, not its perpetrators.
Police brutality in America is longstanding, notably against Black youths and other ethnic minorities.
Blacks and Latinos comprise around two-thirds of the nation’s prison population, mostly for nonviolent offenses, including illicit drug possession.
Post-9/11, scores of Muslims were wrongfully accused of terrorist related offenses.
They’re unjustifiably perceived to be barbaric, violent, uncivilized, gun-toting terrorists – when charged automatically convicted in the court of public opinion, due process and judicial fairness rarely afforded them.
Trump’s banning Muslims from designated countries from traveling to America has nothing to do with protecting the country from Islamic extremists.
It’s all about fear-mongering and unjustifiably equating Muslims with terrorism – hyping nonexistent threats to justify America’s imperial agenda, along with contempt for undocumented people of color and racial justice.
Chances of being struck by lightning are greater than becoming a terrorist attack victim in America. Death by auto accident, preventable diseases, domestic violence, alcoholism, or overuse of legal or illicit drugs is infinitely higher.
The only terrorist threat Americans or Europeans face is state-sponsored. Death or injury from ISIS or other terrorists domestically is virtually nil.
Yet most people are manipulated to believe otherwise. They’re easy marks to be fooled no matter how many previous times they were duped.
No terrorist attacks occurred on US soil in modern memory. Ones attributed to Muslims were state-sponsored false flags, including 9/11, the mother of them all.
America needs enemies to justify its imperial agenda. None exist, so they’re invented. Muslim Arabs are the nation’s enemy of choice, wrongfully portrayed as threats to national security.
Trump’s actions on border security and immigration enforcement wrongfully state undocumented “aliens…present a significant threat to national security and public safety.”
Earlier he claimed Muslims from designated nations and undocumented immigrants come at times to America “with evil intentions.” His actions reflect unacceptable Islamophobia and racist disdain for people of color.
From inception, America has been shamefully racist and unjust. Most Black youths can expect criminal injustice prosecution one or or times in their lives.
Over 60% of Black men born since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act without high school degrees have prison records.
Black and Latino inner cities are battlegrounds, their residents terrorized. Muslims are persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, activism and charity – innocent men and women falsely called terrorists, abused for political advantage.
Jews in America and the West are privileged by comparison. Islamophobia and racism produce increasing violence. Anti-Semitic rage rarely ever happens.
The FBI, CIA, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and killer cops are mostly responsible for violence and persecution of Muslims, Blacks and Latinos in America.
A 2017 Stanford University study found most Jewish students experience little or no anti-Semitism on campus – “(c)ontrary to alarmist reports that describe colleges and universities as ‘hotspots of antisemitism.’ ”
Ethnic minorities and Muslims have much to fear in America and the West, not Jews.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
