I always defend moderate Muslims and Arab-Americans against bigotry. But I recently offended a headstrong Arab-American woman on Facebook by saying India and Israel have too many Muslims. What I meant was that they have every right to protect their Jewish and their Hindu identities. She posts extremist comments like calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a mass murderer." Not a word about all the rockets coming into Israel, killing people.
The reason she is so angry with me is because I mentioned all the crimes Muslims committed in the past against my Hindu ancestors. I also pointed out that many Arabs are very racist against black people. In Lebanon or Morocco, Arabs sometimes taunt blacks in the street with the slur "abeed!abeed!" Abeed literally means slaves in Arabic, but colloquially it is used to mean the African race. Arabs took more slaves out of Africa than whites did. But we only hear about the sins of Big Bad Honky, right?
We should embrace law-abiding fellow citizens who want to be good Americans in the street and good Muslims in the mosque. But those who romanticize backward societies while villanizing either America or her allies should go live there.
