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Introduction
This article will first briefly review the American view/image of Islam and Muslims as well as some of the main factors contributing to these views. It will then delineate the impact that such views have had on the Muslim community in the United States. It will also discuss how the community organized itself to combat these views-and with what results. Since Muslims and Arabs are seen by Americans as one and the same people, the same attributes are almost invariably attached to both groups. Therefore, unless otherwise stated, the two terms, 'Muslims' and 'Arabs', will be used interchangeably or substituted by the terms `Muslims/Arabs' or 'Arabs/Muslims'.
Many Americans hold negative views of Islam and Muslims, as well as of Arabs. These views may have changed somewhat in that certain attributes are at times more pronounced than at other times; however, the overall picture has been and continues to be distorted and negative. Thus, at times, poverty, filth, the desert, sheikhs and harems are emphasized; at others, the view changes and the desert gushes with oil, the sheikhs are wealthy beyond belief and their 'sport' (other than sex, of course) is to destabilize Western economies and ruin the world in order to master it.1 Also, while Islam is at times presented as a religion of fatalism and inaction, at others it is a religion driving its people to fanaticism, bigotry, mayhem and world terrorism. At all times, however, Americans rarely distinguish between Muslims and Arabs, and view both of these groups as alien to themselves as well as to Western heritage. The overall consequence is that the term 'Muslim' or 'Arab' conjures up American hostile reactions to a large variety of peoples who remain indistinguishable to the general public. These include Arabic-speaking peoples, Turks, Ottomans, Iranians, Muslims, etc. In other words the term 'Muslim' or 'Arab' is hazy, broad, malleable-and negative. Whenever there is political or violent conflict between the United States (or any of its allies) and any part or element or faction from among the 'Muslim'/'Arab' groups, the conditioned anti-Muslim/anti-Arab hostility comes to the fore. This is a very large target group indeed, composed of an extremely diverse set of countries and peoples, and is quite likely to provide, as it frequently does,...