He takes offense at the fact that a mosque might be built close to Ground Zero. To me, this says that he believes Islam, and Muslims in general, are to blame for terrorism, rather than blaming the relatively small group of extremists who actually committed the crime. This is like taking offense at Christianity because of the actions and “Christian” rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan. This is Islamophobic.

He wonders why some Arabs cheered when they saw America being attacked. I think he is unaware of some legitimate reasons for anger at America in the Middle East. The biggest single reason is our unwavering support for Israel.

I
was personally sympathetic toward Israel until I found out the simple
fact that the Jewish population of Palestine was as low as 5 percent,
but began to increase significantly at the end of the 19th century, when
the British established a “Jewish homeland” in their newly acquired
colony of Palestine. Since the early Middle Ages, the people and culture
of Palestine had been Arabic, almost exactly as long as England has
been English.

Unlike
most Americans, every Arab knew this and could not understand why part
of their ancient homeland should be given to Jews from all over the
world with the only justification being that the Jews had had a kingdom
there 2,000 years before.

Think
of the American reaction if Oklahoma was taken by force to be given to
the descendants of a people that had lived here 2,000 years ago! Rep.
Wesselhöft is apparently ill-informed about the Arab point of view on
this subject, or he would not be surprised at their anger.

—Chris Reiger
Oklahoma City

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