Avoidance behavior

Re “Another wedge issue,” Opinion, June 26

In avoiding association with Muslim voters, John McCain and Barack Obama are simply recognizing political reality, not pandering to Jewish voters. The visceral fear of Muslims is felt among voters of all religions, not just Jewish voters.

Photos of Obama standing in front of Muslim women in head scarves would have been added to the arsenal of right-wing pundits in support of the smear that Obama is secretly a Muslim. TV coverage of Obama visiting a mosque would confirm the beliefs of voters who think that he is Muslim.

Endorsement by Muslim organizations would be repugnant to voters in general, not just Jewish voters. Of course it is politically expedient for both candidates, and especially Obama, to avoid association with Muslims, but it is blatantly anti-Semitic to blame the Jews for this.

Nancy Shorr

Woodland Hills

The article’s authors complain that McCain visited the Western Wall and not the Al Aqsa Mosque. How soon they forget that Muslims initiated an entire war against the Jews, the so-called Al Aqsa intifada, after a Jewish infidel named Ariel Sharon made just that visit in 2000.

Are they insinuating that no such uprising would occur just because a visiting Christian infidel is OK but Jewish infidels are not? Who exactly is making a wedge here and blaming Americans for seeing this as it is?

Gary Dalin

Venice