Blunt Question, Blunt Answer
This column points to some bad thinking that harms everyone who indulges in it. It's effects go far beyond just Arabs and Muslims. Conspiracy thinking is running riot in America today, with every group trying to blame its problems on discrimination.
There is discrimination. There always has been. But blaming all our problems on someone else, puts them beyond solution and excuses us from doing all we can.
I posted the following on the NYTimes forum: I would apply the wisdom here not only to Arabs and Israelis, but to every group trying to improve its lot. I used to be a Public Defender, and I noted that frequently my clients had the attitude that they were the victims of an unfair system. Sometimes this was true, but most of the time they had brought their problems on themselves, and would continue to do so, because they never would admit to themselves that they had any responsibility for their own actions--it was always someone else's fault. Mine, because a "good lawyer" would have gotten them off. The police, the prosecutor, the jury or the judge, because they were all out to get these defendant's. It was never the fact that they were, in fact, guilty.

The same principle applies in the case of American blacks who are angry with white society, because the rights guaranteed by the civil rights laws have not resulted in instant prosperity and happiness. They think it must be because whites are holding them down, because American society is racist. Whether this is true or not, it does not, in Mr. Friedman's words, "absolve [them] and [their] leaders of any responsibility for [their] its predicament � and any need for self-examination. No civilization [or individual, race, religion or nationality] has ever prospered with that approach."

This is precisely why racism itself is wrong. It justifies discrimination and provides an excuse for failure. We all need to be wary of this kind of thinking and resist its siren call.