Strange Reaction to the Seattle Shooting

Medics Evacuate the Wounded (Seattle, not Israel)

It finally happened. On Friday, a gunman penetrated the Jewish Federation building in downtown Seattle and opened fire on people inside, killing one woman and seriously injuring five others, some of whom are in critical condition. Naveed Afzal Haq, an American citizen of Pakistani descent, apparently identified himself as an American Muslim “angered by Israel.” The FBI believes that he acted alone and does not belong to any terrorist organizations. It is possible that the attacker was a mentally unstable individual; his police record indicates a prior charge for lewd conduct. Most American Muslim organizations immediately condemned the terror attack. Nevertheless, there have been a few isolated reactions that deserve some scrutiny. I was a bit baffled, for example, to read the following statement by Ziyad Zaitoun, a 52-year-old civil engineer taking part in a protest against Israel’s operation in Lebanon, who was quoted in the Seattle Times:

"[A]ny time something like this happens — especially against the state of Israel or people connected to the state of Israel — we fear for our lives" as Muslims, Zaitoun said.

There are some who claim that American and European Jews are alarmists who exaggerate threats to Jewish communities in the Diaspora in order to further pro-Israeli political agendas. Those who belittle threats against Jews and Jewish organizations, sometimes simultaneously insist that Muslims, in America, Europe, and the Middle East, are more deserving of “victim status.” Inevitably, the clamoring for victim status becomes a zero-sum game. After all, the perfect victim cannot also be a perpetrator. Furthermore, the argument for Muslim victim status sometimes turns into a corollary argument that Jews are the real perpetrators. Zaitoun’s statement plays on fears about a backlash against Muslims in America to insinuate that the state of Israel, Jewish organizations and their allies represent a mortal danger to American Muslims! This is a malicious and dangerous distortion. Zaitoun might be justified in dissociating Muslim Americans as a whole from the attack (though the reality is that there are some in the North American Muslim communities who do incite attacks against Jews). But his insinuation could also justify further attacks, as it implies that Jews are threatening Muslim lives.

It was also bizarre to read that

Seattle police were protecting temples and mosques Saturday after a suspected hate killing prompted fears of the Middle East crisis spreading to the United States (CNN).

Muslim extremists in Canada, the US, and Europe have attacked Jews and Jewish institutions in the past. In doing so, they have indeed spread the means used by terrorists in the Middle East to North America and Western Europe. But it is simply misleading to suggest that the “Middle East crisis [is] spreading to the United States.” This statement implies that there has been some kind of parallel Jewish response, and that American Jewish groups and individuals are gearing up to launch attacks on mosques or Muslim community centers. In fact, American Jewish organizations, perhaps because of their long experience in battling hate crimes, have been very vocal in speaking out against attacks on Muslims institutions and the marginalization of Muslim Americans.