We are all deeply upset by the recent attacks in Brussels, Ankara, Istanbul, Burkina Faso, and the Ivory Coast. Such terrible tragedies are becoming far too common.
But with the attacks by isolated extremists come the calls to condemn an entire religion. Most recently, presidential candidate Ted Cruz has called for “patrols” and surveillance in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods in the United States. These proposed actions do not make us more safe- they feed directly into the ideology of hatred and fear that has spurred these horrific acts of violence. The best way to counter extremism is not with more extremism. We cannot become the hatred-spewing, violent beings that ISIL and other terrorist organizations want people to believe that we are. We cannot repeat the deadly history that results from isolating and punishing a group of people out of fear. We know all too well the painful legacy of Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II, as Representative Mark Takano (D-Calif.) has pointed out.
Like many American Jews, I feel a particular sense of dread when political leaders start condemning an entire group of people, threatening to deport, torture, even kill all of them. Many Jews in the United States owe our citizenship to relatives or ancestors who fled their home countries because their Jewish identity had put them in danger. Regardless of our own religiosity, many American Jews identify with our common history of ostracism and exile, and many of us see the same patterns repeated in the disturbing rhetoric of Donald Trump and his white supremacist allies.
Our words carry power. That is why it is important to say— and necessary to repeat— that Islam is not by its very nature a violent religion, and that almost all Muslims do not commit acts of violence— on the contrary, many see these acts of terror as an affront to the tenets of their religion. We cannot start treating all Muslims as if they are the potential enemy— they should not be put in ghettos and kept under surveillance. We should not act out of pure fear. We should not respond to acts of hatred against innocent people with more hatred against innocent people. Instead, we should show the people who commit terrible acts of violence that they do not bring nations to their knees— instead, their actions serve to unite us in our commitment to peace and tolerance.