Thursday, January 18, 2007

The Price is Wrong

A complaint filed by the National Association of Muslim-American Women alleges that the "Jewish lobby"
have provided misleading and highly politicized information, and testimonies to US law enforcement agencies, and also the US Congress that was, and is aimed at creating a political, legal, social, and financial environment that is hostile to Muslims and Arab Americans, and that causes Muslim and Arab-Americans to suffer discrimination, persecution, and the deprivation and denial of Constitutional rights, and equal protection under the law.

To be clear, the "Jewish lobby" is not my addition, the complaint specifically refers to its targets by that moniker.

It's not a very professional complaint (at the bottom, it wrongly misspells Rep. Deborah Pryce's name as "Price"), and as Eugene Volokh notes, with the exception of one fleeting reference to perjury, there is nothing in the complaint that would be within the Justice Department's jurisdiction to investigate anyway. I'm doubtful that the Jewish community really has a formal "enemies list", for example, and even if certain organizations have people they deem to be hostile to their interests, that's perfectly in their rights. Furthermore, while I think certain neo-conservatives come off as anti-Islamic, citing a column attacking Islamists doesn't prove the case.

The entire thing would be worth but a fleeting mention if not for the fact that it's author is also on the board of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the largest and most influential Islamic organizations in the US. This doesn't really say anything about CAIR or its official positions, any more than Dennis Prager's bloviations are representative of the US Holocaust Memorial Council. Still, it would be nice if the CAIR disassociated itself from this move, which is yet another manifestation of the classic "Jews control the media" slander whose revival act is getting very tiresome.

UPDATE: Volokh issues a correction. The writer is not currently on the board of the CAIR, although she used to be. So the CAIR really doesn't have to do any distancing at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't be naive about CAIR. They won't distance themselves from this because they, along with most muslims agree with it.

Anonymous said...

Technically, the complaint refers specifically to AIPAC as 'better known as the "Jewish lobby."' What I find most bizarre about the complaint is its repeated mention of "white nationalists" in the same breath as Muslims. Maybe someone should explain to NAMAW that white nationalists aren't held in high regard and are bad people with whom to rhetorically ally oneself...