Writing in Cairo's Al Ahram http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/553/op2.htm noted Palestinian-American writer Edward Said says:


For the seven million Americans
who are Muslims (only two million
of them Arab) and have lived
through the catastrophe and
backlash of 11 September, it's been
a harrowing, especially unpleasant
time. In addition to the fact that
there have been several Arab and
Muslim innocent casualties of the atrocities, there
is an almost palpable air of hatred directed at the
group as a whole that has taken many forms.
George W Bush immediately seemed to align
America and God with each other, declaring war
on the "folks" -- who are now, as he says, wanted
dead or alive -- who perpetrated the horrible
deeds. And this means, as no one needs any
further reminding, that Osama Bin Laden, the
elusive Muslim fanatic who represents Islam to
the vast majority of Americans, has taken centre
stage. TV and radio have run file pictures and
potted accounts of the shadowy (former playboy,
they say) extremist almost incessantly, as they
have of the Palestinian women and children
caught "celebrating" America's tragedy.



Pundits and hosts refer non-stop to "our" war
with Islam, and words like "jihad" and "terror"
have aggravated the understandable fear and
anger that seem widespread all over the country.
Two people (one a Sikh) have already been killed
by enraged citizens who seem to have been
encouraged by remarks like Defence Department
official Paul Wolfowitz's to literally think in
terms of "ending countries" and nuking our
enemies. Hundreds of Muslim and Arab
shopkeepers, students, hijab-ed women and
ordinary citizens have had insults hurled at them,
while posters and graffiti announcing their
imminent death spring up all over the place. The
director of the leading Arab-American
organisation told me this morning that he
averages 10 messages an hour of insult, threat,
bloodcurdling verbal attack. A Gallup poll
released yesterday states that 49 per cent of the
American people said yes (49 per cent no) to the
idea that Arabs, including those who are
American citizens, should carry special
identification; 58 per cent demand (41 per cent
don't) that Arabs, including those who are
Americans, should undergo special, more intense
security checks in general.



Then, the official bellicosity slowly diminishes as
George W discovers that his allies are not quite as
unrestrained as he is, as (undoubtedly) some of
his advisers, chief among them the altogether
more sensible-seeming Colin Powell, suggest that
invading Afghanistan is not quite as simple as
sending in the Texas militias might have been,
even as the enormously confused reality forced on
him and his staff dissipates the simple Manichean
imagery of good versus evil that he has been
maintaining on behalf of his people. A noticeable
de-escalation sets in, even though reports of
police and FBI harassment of Arabs and Muslim
continue to flood in. Bush visits a Washington
mosque; he calls on community leaders and the
Congress to damp down hate speech; he starts
trying to make at least rhetorical distinctions
between "our" Arab and Muslim friends (the
usual ones -- Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia) and
the still undisclosed terrorists. In his speech to the
joint session of Congress, Bush did say that the
US is not at war with Islam, but said regrettably
nothing about the rising wave of both incidents
and rhetoric that has assailed Muslims, Arabs and
people resembling Middle Easterners all across
the country. Powell here and there expresses
displeasure with Israel and Sharon for exploiting
the crisis by oppressing Palestinians still more,
but the general impression is that US policy is still
on the same course it has always been on -- only
now a huge war seems to be in the making.