WHAT DO American Muslims have to say about the ominous roundup of Jews in Iran?
Word reached the West earlier this month that at least 13 Iranian Jews have been held incommunicado since March. They are accused, almost certainly falsely, of spying for Israel and the United States. The prisoners are from the poor Jewish communities of Shiraz and Isfahan; among their number are rabbis, kosher butchers, a cemetery guard, and a 16-year-old boy. According to the independent Iran Press Service, they have not been allowed to see their families or meet with lawyers.
In the antisemitic Islamic Republic of Iran, to be accused of aiding Israel is practically to be sentenced to hang. "The Jewish spies for Israel will be tried for treason according to Islamic law," Ayatollah Mohammed Yazdi, the head of Iran's judicial system, promised thousands of cheering worshipers in a prayer sermon on June 11, "and they may be sentenced to death — not once but several times."
Most of Iran's Jews fled when the Islamic fundamentalists seized power in 1979. The 25,000 who remain are subject to severe persecution. Calls for the release of the Jews who have been arrested have come from around the world. The governments of Argentina, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russia, and the United States have expressed concern; so have the European Union, Amnesty International, and the Dalai Lama. An Internet petition for the captives' freedom has gathered more than 27,000 signatures. Jesse Jackson has volunteered to intercede.
From America's Muslim community, however, there is mostly — silence. Nazir Khaja, head of the American Muslim Council, reportedly attended the press conference at which Jackson offered his services. But there have been no statements of outrage at Iran's persecution of a religious minority. No full-page ads condemning Ayatollah Yazdi's invocation of "Islamic law" to justify hatred of Jews. No pleas for the prisoners' freedom from leading Muslim organizations.
Sadly, this is typical.
 A rescue team looks for survivors of the Al Qaeda terrorist bombing that destroyed the US embassy building In Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998. No American Muslim organization denounced the attack, in which 213 people were killed and thousands wounded. |
Afghanistan under the Taliban theocracy has become a vast dungeon for women. In the name of Islam, Afghan women are no longer allowed to work or go to school. They are compelled to stay indoors unless accompanied by a close male relative. In public they must be covered from head to toe in a heavy shroud; let a glimpse of ankle or wrist show and the religious police may flog them on the spot.
The health of Afghan women has deteriorated because examinations by male doctors are now illegal and most female doctors have been fired. Barred from the work force, many women have plunged into poverty — especially those whose husbands or fathers died during Afghanistan's 20 years of warfare. The Taliban say they are only doing what Islam demands.
Human rights organizations have denounced Afghanistan's sexual apartheid. No doubt many US Muslims are privately appalled at the Taliban's vicious oppression. But where are the public groans of anguish that the teachings of Islam should be perverted so cruelly? Why do American Muslim spokesmen — so quick to cry foul if Hollywood portrays a Muslim unflatteringly — say nothing about the crimes being committed by the Muslims who rule Afghanistan?
Last August, terrorist bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania murdered 224 people. It seemed instantly clear that the mastermind behind the attacks was Osama bin Laden — a multimillionaire Islamic fanatic who preaches that it is "the duty of Muslims to confront, fight, and kill" Americans and their allies. On that occasion, prominent Islamic voices in the United States did speak out. But their chief message was not one of horrified sympathy for the victims and their families or of shame that anyone calling himself a Muslim could perpetrate such an atrocity.
No — what Muslim leaders were eager to communicate was a warning to the media not to speculate about a possible Islamic connection to the slaughter. A release issued by the Council on American Islamic Relations was typical: "American Muslims ask journalists to exercise restraint in reporting on embassy bombings," ran the headline. To this day America's major Islamic groups have not ostracized bin Laden — or even labeled him a terrorist.
The Council on American Islamic Relations and organizations like it — the American Muslim Council, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee — routinely issue "action alerts" to protest unflattering references to Muslims and Arabs in the news and entertainment media. Sometimes these protests go to farcical extremes. Earlier this spring, the ADC went after the Associated Press for using the word "terrorists" to describe Hezbollah, a Muslim militia that routinely fires missiles at Israeli homes. About Hezbollah's "Islamic" policy of targeting civilians, the ADC is silent.
Muslim Americans hate being stereotyped as supporters of violence and jihad. Yet they keep quiet when violence and jihad are waged by evildoers professing Islam. In Sudan, Arab raiders capture non-Muslim black Africans, then sell them to slaveholders who force them to convert. In New York, Muslim extremists have bombed the World Trade Center and opened fire on tourists in the Empire State Building. But wait for American Muslim organizations to cry out against the perpetrators of such enormities and you are likely to wait in vain.
If US Muslims demanded the release of Iran's 13 innocent Jews, Teheran would pay attention. But Muslims in America have their priorities. Justice for the victims of Islam is apparently not among them.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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