In the ears of American Jews, among the golden words of American history are those of George Washington to a synagogue: “To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
God knows these words have rung false about many different communities in the dark-light-checkered history of our Republic. (Blacks, Mormons, the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese, gay people —— )
There have even been moments in American history when those words seemed not so clearly truthful, about Jews. (See Philip Roth’s amazing alternate-history novel, The Plot Against America, and its roots in real history.) But in this generation, in regard to Jews these seem engraved on American reality – not only in stone, but in glowing beams of light.
But in the wake of the Fort Hood murders, it is not so clear that these words apply to American Muslims.
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