You know something is wrong in America when religious fanatics plan a book burning.
Pentecostal preacher Terry Jones has planned a Koran burning at his Gainesville, Fla., church on Sept. 11. Despite pressure to dissuade him, including a warning from Gen. David Petraeus that images of flaming Korans would “undoubtedly be used by extremists … to incite violence,” Jones has not yet backed off.
Jones may be acting like a fool, but he’s not alone.
As our story this week details, anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence have turned up around the country with increasing intensity. A Tennessee mosque under construction was torched a few weeks ago, others defaced with graffiti. The FBI has been investigating many threats.
Some of this has been fueled by plans to build an Islamic center a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, the so-called ground zero mosque. Most of it can be attributed to religious bigotry.
Fortunately, the Jewish community is not sitting still for this un-American hatred. National Jewish leaders have been meeting with their interfaith counterparts on the subject. Those leaders released a strongly worded joint statement this week condemning the bigots.
Locally, dozens of religious leaders of all faiths have released their own statement blasting the wave of “hate directed at Islam and Muslims.”
The Anti-Defamation League, which opposed the New York Islamic center’s construction, has announced the creation of an Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, which will serves as a watchdog for acts of anti-Muslim bigotry. The ADL is good at this, and the gesture will surely not go unnoticed within the Muslim American community.
Jews, of course, have a special sensitivity to intolerance like that shown by Jones. After all, modern-day book burning was perfected in Nazi Germany, when towering bonfires of Jewish texts lit up the night skies of Berlin.
As if to dismantle the twisted logic and collective contempt of the anti-Muslim crowd, we also feature this week a story about Imam Suhaib Webb, a Muslim cleric in Santa Clara who joined seven of his colleagues on a recent tour of Nazi death camps in Poland.
His account of that trip, and his subsequent words of reconciliation between Muslim and Jew, speak volumes about the possibilities of peaceful coexistence.
We add our voice to those of all faiths and creeds who condemn anti-Muslim hatred. This sentiment has no place in the United States, where freedom of religion remains one of our most cherished constitutional rights.