The Democratic Senate primary in Florida is just getting more interesting -- and disturbing. While I noted that candidate Jeff Greene made a disconcerting comment about Muslims last week, I hadn't realized the extent of his strange views. James Zogby's Arab American Institute sent along a transcript of Greene's remarks from a recent candidate debate:
Question: "I don't know what's going on in the Muslim world. They are scaring me very much. Over in Europe, there are Muslims taking over the population. Here in America, they talk about building a mosque at the scene of the Twin Towers. What is your take on what's going on, really, and what can be done if there is a bigger problem?"
Greene: "I'm not an expert on Muslims. It is my understanding that there are 1.2 billion Muslims, and that about 200 million of them are pretty devout followers of parts of the Quran. Parts of it that say something like, everyone has a chance to accept Allah and Muhammad's teachings and if they don't the infidels must be killed, there's all kinds of this crazy stuff. I think, unfortunately, that's motivating extremists. Most Muslims are like everyone else in the world, they want peace. But there are people that follow some of those crazy teachings, you know, the suicide bombers.
It's a scary world out there. I believe what I read in the media, and I'm scared, and I'm scared for the world, and I'm scared for America, and that's why I'm running for office. Like I said earlier, we have to make our enemies tremble. We have to stand by our friends, be they Europeans or Israel or anywhere, and not let these extremists do anything to destroy the wonderful lives we've created for ourselves."
This combination of ignorance and demagoguery is really unfortunate. There's a large and aging Jewish population in Florida who make up an influential voting bloc in the Democratic primary, and politicians there typically make clear their strong support of Israel. But there's a way to support Israel without slandering an entire religion or frightening voters -- maybe Greene should find it.
-- Tim Fernholz
