Sometime in the early 1980s, a new type of crime was identified. It was called \”hate crime.\” Although the conduct which hate crime laws were aimed at was already criminal, the new laws targeted the motivation for the crime.
One can argue whether the actions Israel\’s government has taken in the face of terror and recalcitrance are moral or effective. One can argue that Israel\’s settlement policy — as its architect, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has come around to doing — is deleterious to the nation\’s security.
What would happen if a Palestinian terrorist were to detonate a bomb at the entrance to an apartment building in Israel and cause the death of an elderly man in a wheelchair, who would later be found buried under the rubble of the building?
In fact, CAIR\’s sponsorship of the tour, which occurred last month, had nothing to do with improving dialogue or facilitating understanding — just the opposite.
To many of the 700 Jewish students on the seven Claremont Colleges campuses, it was their first direct encounter with anti-Semitism, and they reacted with rage, fear, confusion and a new sense of solidarity.
Imagine an America where anti-Semitism has plummeted to new lows and Jews now scale the highest heights of success; where African Americans, once forced to sit on the back of the bus, today occupy a place at the head table of major corporations and the nation\’s most prestigious universities; where gays can not only come out of the closet but can decorate it, be admired and even land a television show for their creativity.
Californians have reached new levels of accommodation for cultural and other differences, but some of our officials still speak unashamedly in stark racial and ethnic terms.
In August 2001, thousands of human rights activists from around the globe gathered in Durban, South Africa, for a United Nations conference that participants hoped would address racial injustice plaguing humanity, from Rwanda to Sri Lanka to the United States.
Jews in America are more favorably regarded than Catholics, barely less well liked than Protestants and far more highly viewed than Evangelical Christians.
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