...What links all these people — a Muslim head of state, a rude crowd in Michigan, an experienced magazine contributor, and a European public intellectual — besides their having articulated a spreading anger against the "Jews"? Perhaps a growing unease with hard questions that won't go away and thus beg for easy, cheap answers.

A Malaysian official and his apologists must realize that gender apartheid, statism, tribalism, and the anti-democratic tendencies of the Middle East cause its poverty and frustration despite a plethora of natural resources (far more impressive assets than the non-petroleum-bearing rocks beneath parched Israel). But why call for introspection when the one-syllable slur "Jews" suffices instead?

And why would an Arab-American audience — itself composed of many who fled the tyranny and economic stagnation of Arab societies for the freedom and opportunity of a liberal United States — wish to hear a reasoned explanation of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian war when it was so much easier to hiss and moan, especially when mainstream observers would ignore their anti-Semitism and be impressed instead with the cadre of candidates who flock to Michigan?

How do you explain to an audience that Quentin Tarantino appeals both to teens and to empty-headed critics precisely because something is terribly amiss in America, when affluent and leisured suburbanites are drawn to scenes of raw killing as long as it is dressed up with "art" and "meaning"?

How could a Tony Judt write a reasoned and balanced account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when to do so would either alienate or bore the literati?

So they all, whether by design or laxity, take the easier way out — especially when slurring "Israel" or "the Jews" involves none of the risks of incurring progressive odium that similarly clumsy attacks against blacks, women, Palestinians, or homosexuals might draw, requires no real thinking, and seems to find an increasingly receptive audience...

...The impulse to hide the truth about Islam — about its connection to terrorism and its disconnection from Western civilization — is a shocking fact of the "war on terrorism." Addressing reporters on the day of his Ramadan dinner, Mr. Bush said Muslim leaders have asked him: "Why do Americans think Muslims are terrorists?" Instead of answering, "Because an unending pattern of catastrophic terrorism against the United States has been perpetrated by Muslims, that's why," Mr. Bush replied: "That's not what Americans think. Americans think terrorists are evil people who have hijacked a great religion."

Preaching on Saudi state television from the holy mosque in Medina, Shaykh Salah Bin-Muhammad al-Budayr recently hailed Ramadan, concluding his sermon (according to a translation at www.imra.org.il): "O God, support Islam and Muslims and destroy the enemies of Islam, including Jews, Christians and atheists. . . . O God, deal with the Jews for they are within your power. . . O God, shake the land under their feet, instill fear in their hearts and make them a booty for Muslims and a lesson to others."

Such sermonizing — quite common in the Muslim world — may show a commitment to something, but religious freedom isn't it..