As'ad Abu Khalil

"One of the things that you experience as an Arab in the US, is that, unfortunately, American anti-Semites try to confide in you, assuming--wrongly of course in this case--that you must as an Arab share their anti-Semitism. Just today, I had a plumber come to my house. He heard my TV blasting: he guessed it was Arabic. He asked where I am from, and I told him. As soon as I answered him, he yelled to me...something anti-Semitic. Of course, I had to immediately tell him where I stand on this (in opposition to anti-Semitism). Living in the US all these years only confirmed my theory all along: that anti-Semitism is a Western Christian phenomenon--not that there are no manifestations of anti-Semitism in the Arab world, but they are imported."