Why Is Trump Silent on Islamophobic Attacks?
Last week President Trump condemned attacks against American Jews, which is good. So why won’t he condemn attacks against American Muslims? Why is there so little political pressure on him to do so?
Numerically, the problem appears roughly similar. In the ten days following Trump’s victory, the Southern Poverty Law Center chronicled one hundred attacks—or threatened attacks—against American Jews and 49 against American Muslims. In its survey, which encompassed the period between election day and February 9, the progressive news site ThinkProgress counted 70 anti-Jewish incidents and 31 anti-Muslim ones.
The ratio of anti-Jewish to anti-Muslim incidents, in other words, appears slightly, 1.9 percent of Americans are Jewish; 0.9 percent are Muslim . That means that, if the SPLC and Think Progress tallies are correct, Jews and Muslims have a roughly equal chance of being victimized. In fact, Muslims are more likely to suffer an actual assault. Of the 70 anti-Jewish incidents that Think Progress catalogued, only one involved physical attack. (The large majority were bomb threats). Of the 31 anti-Muslim incidents, by contrast, nine did.
