Saturday, July 29, 2006

One woman killed, five others injured in shooting at Seattle Jewish center

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Six women were shot - one fatally - this afternoon at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by a man who told a witness he was upset about 'what was going on in Israel.'"

The shooter has been apprehended: "'We believe it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism,' said David Gomez, who heads the FBI's counterterrorism efforts in Seattle."

The Seattle Times has more here.

Tension is everywhere, it seems. But let's not make more of this than it is. This was a horrific incident, an isolated one, that left one woman dead. The FBI says that it was "a lone individual".

So why does the bigoted right insist on turning this into yet another "clash of civilizations" story, yet another example of them against us, yet another excuse for blanket prejudice. Just see Michelle Malkin, who titles her post "Shooting in Seattle: Muslim revenge".

Whatever is going on in Lebanon, whatever else is going on around the world in terms of Islamist terrorism, and however much Israel's very existence is threatened by its enemies, let's not condemn all Muslims for this. To do so is to play into the hands of those who think the worst of us, Muslim and otherwise. It is to become too much like them, the ones who truly wish us all harm.

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