ISLAMIC GROUP URGES SYNDICATE TO DROP COLUMNIST

By: Dave Astor CAIR Doesn't Care Much For Cal Thomas





An Islamic group upset with a Cal Thomas column has urged the Los Angeles Times Syndicate (LATS) to drop Thomas. "The entire tone of the column was inflammatory towards Islam," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington.



"I did not denounce all of Islam," countered Thomas. "I singled out radical Islam. I'm against anyone - radical Muslims, radical Jews, or radical Christians - who uses violence to achieve political ends."



His column stated: "The threat of the present and immediate future is radical, fundamentalist, murderous Islam. Most Muslims, of course, are not radical, but, as in other trouble spots where religion is part of the political mix, it doesn't take many to destabilize a nation."



Hooper, however, said many Americans stereotype all Muslims as radical. After CAIR expressed its displeasure, LATS received 732 e-mail messages in six days criticizing Thomas' column.



"Some were obviously original and scholarly in approach," said LATS Executive Editor Timothy Lange. "But many who wrote seemed to just take comments from the CAIR Web site or press release and turn them into letters without reading the column." Thomas added that many messages were "filled with hate."



The columnist said other commentators have also been subject to "intimidation" campaigns sparked by various groups concerned with Mideast and non-Mideast issues. "E-mail makes it a lot easier," Thomas said.



None of Thomas' 520 newspaper clients dropped him because of the column, according to LATS (which is being absorbed by Tribune Media Services).



Will LATS drop Thomas? "Of course not," replied Lange. "Our role is to put out a variety of opinion. If the syndicate agreed with everyone we distributed, we'd have a very unbalanced lineup."



But CAIR says there has been a lot of unbalanced opinion recently expressed by American columnists, politicians, and other public figures. It said some commentators - not Thomas - have even called Palestinians "ragheads" and "pond scum."



Stated CAIR Board Chairman Omar Ahmad, "These racist and bigoted attacks on Islam, Islamic civilization, and the Palestinian people appear to be part of a desperate attempt by the pro-Israel lobby to deflect attention away from that state's brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians."







Dave Astor (dastor@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.







Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.