Jeff Greene Criticized for Remarks on Muslims

The Arab American Institute is criticizing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene for insensitive remarks on Muslims made in an article last week that appeared in the Washington Post.

"With America engaged in two wars in the Muslim world and with critical national security interests at stake, the last thing we need is for candidates like Jeff Greene to deepen the divide and put us all at greater risk by displays of ignorance," said James Zogby, president of the institute. "Greene just had his McCain moment. When a voter accused President Obama of being an Arab during a campaign rally in the 2008 presidential race, McCain responded by saying 'No, ma'am. He is a decent family man.' McCain failed to respond to the bigotry of the question then, and Greene did the same now. That is truly unfortunate for all Florida voters, especially those that are Muslim."

The Greene campaign provided the transcript of the remarks that Zogby mentioned.

Question: "I don't know what's going on in the Muslim world. They are scaring me very much. Over in Europe, there are Muslims taking over the population. Here in America, they talk about building a mosque at the scene of the Twin Towers. What is your take on what's going on, really, and what can be done if there is a bigger problem?"

Answer: "I'm not an expert on Muslims. It is my understanding that there are 1.2 billion Muslims, and that about 200 million of them are pretty devout followers of parts of the Quran. Parts of it that say something like, everyone has a chance to accept Allah and Muhammad's teachings and if they don't the infidels must be killed, there's all kinds of this crazy stuff. I think, unfortunately, that's motivating extremists. Most Muslims are like everyone else in the world, they want peace. But there are people that follow some of those crazy teachings, you know, the suicide bombers. It's a scary world out there. I believe what I read in the media, and I'm scared, and I'm scared for the world, and I'm scared for America, and that's why I'm running for office. Like I said earlier, we have to make our enemies tremble. We have to stand by our friends, be they Europeans or Israelis or anywhere, and not let these extremists do anything to destroy the wonderful lives we've created for ourselves."