To the Editor:

In his column, “The candidate who happens to be Jewish” (1/14), James Kirchick contends that “anti-Semitism in America is not a serious problem.” He is dead wrong. All Arabs, and therefore a large percentage of Muslims, are a Semitic people.

When Kirchick himself can publicly use terms like “Muslim aggressors,” “Islamic terrorists,” and “racist and backwards religious fundamentalists abroad” and say things like “Why not indulge their sick vision of reality” and “We are not going to win this battle by trying to please the Muslim ‘street,'” without clearly distinguishing between extremists and Muslims at large, that is the epitome of anti-Semitism.

Unfortunately, Kirchick’s own “sick vision of reality” is on the rise in America these days, with legal Arab and Muslim immigrants being rounded up and detained without charge, while Bush rushes into yet another racist war in the Middle East.

Saqib Bhatti ’04

January 15, 2003

The writer is treasurer of the Muslim Student Association and a member of the Yale Coalition for Peace.