Spencer Ackerman flags this passage from an column by Mike Kelly about what he saw at a gathering protesting the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero:
At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.
“Go home,” several shouted from the crowd.
“Get out,” others shouted.
In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque.
“I'm a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.
But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.
In a speech in Turkey last year, President Obama declared that "the United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam." As Marc Lynch notes in his new report, the administration's national security strategy reflects an attempt to turn back that perception. The problem is that, as I wrote last week, a big part of the conservative base does want a war with "Islam," because as far as they're concerned, Islam and terrorism are inseparable. As long as you look a certain way, it doesn't even seem to matter if you're actually Muslim.
-- A. Serwer
