The Chosen One

"I don't think Americans have been given the full context of those cartoons," Abboud tells Uncle Nasty, her voice becoming louder as she tries to speak over the one on the other end of the phone. "I'm not defending the violence. But the editor of the Danish paper wasn't trying to make a point; he was clearly trying to offend people.

"They've really got a Nazi mentality in Europe right now," she says to Nasty, her half-eaten half-sandwich now an afterthought.

She goes on to explain that she's been following the cartoon controversy since the Jyllands-Posten first published the cartoons back in September, long before fundamentalist Muslim imams took the cartoons on a tour of the Middle East and ignited riots and protests early last month. The cartoons depict the Prophet Muhammad, which in itself has offended Muslims; the most widely circulated being one in which Muhammad is wearing a bomb as a turban. Another depicts Muhammad in Heaven turning back extremists, saying, "Stop! Stop! We have run out of virgins!"

Since then, Muslims in the Middle East and Asia have vowed to boycott the Danish government and Danish products. And they've since directed their anger at the United States and its so-called war on terror.

Normally, Abboud says, this wouldn't be the fight she and the Muslim American Society would choose to battle.

"We try to stick with domestic issues," Abboud says.

But, as unofficial representatives of Muslim America, MAS, as well as the Council of American-Islamic Relations, is speaking out about the cartoons.

That's not to say, though, that both organizations -- the largest of their kind in the U.S. -- haven't sought to further their own cause, which mostly focuses on righting discriminatory wrongs against Muslims, such as racial profiling and hate speech, by being willing participants in the cartoon fray.

"I wish I didn't have to deal with this crazy reaction, the violent response," Bray says. "I agree with Deedra on that point.

"But I slightly differ with her as to the importance of the issue. This is rooted in something much deeper than free speech. This is about a backlash against Muslims in Europe, their emigration to Europe, their culture and their faith.

"Again, though," Bray adds, "in this business, you find yourself sucked into stuff you wish you didn't have to deal with."

Abboud says she's found herself unwittingly embroiled in the controversy locally. But at the same time, Abboud's been welcoming, if not looking for, a fight over the cartoons.

She's quarreled with a columnist for the East Valley Tribune who advocated that U.S. papers should run the cartoons, and her February 9 e-mail was published in the Arizona Republic.

When ASU's Center for Conflict and Religion hosted a round-table discussion on February 15 -- "The Danish Cartoon Crisis: Perspectives on the Global Controversy" -- Abboud was upset that just one Muslim was on the panel, and appeared to be even angrier that she, as the director of Arizona's MAS, wasn't personally invited. (The panel was all ASU faculty, which Abboud is not.) After e-mailing ASU to voice her displeasure, she showed up at the discussion, but had nothing but positive things to say to and about the panel.

She's also drawn the ire of Bill Straus, the regional director of the local office of the Anti-Defamation League, who believes many Muslims are being hypocrites on the current topic.

"The irony is unbelievable," Straus says at his office in central Phoenix. "For years, the U.S. and various organizations have appealed to the Muslim leadership to do something about the hate and anti-Semitism smeared every day in Middle Eastern and Arab newspapers. And you know what the defense has been? 'We don't interfere with the freedom of the press.'

"Now, for Muslims to be outraged?" Straus asks. "It's hard to escape the irony."

Surprisingly, Abboud agrees.

"Bill's right," she says. "It is hypocritical."

Even more surprising -- as Muslim protesters in Turkey, Libya and Syria torch American, Danish and Italian embassies in response to the cartoons -- Abboud says she's indifferent.

"I really don't care about this whole thing," she says. "There are so many more important things for us to do in Washington, D.C., than have to hold a press conference about cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be unto him.

"I'm offended, yes," she adds. "I'm just not as outraged as everyone else seems to be."

But Straus believes she should be, just as much about anti-Muslim cartoons as those he believes are anti-Semitic -- like the one of Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, Ariel Sharon eating a bowl of bloody Palestinian children, and a Hasidic Jew helping an Israeli soldier desecrate the Koran.

"I've been disappointed in Deedra when the chips were down," Straus says. "And I think that's because I've seen her being very careful about where she comes down on some issues. I mean, is she anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-American?

"I'd really like to know. Hopefully, I'll get those answers someday," Straus says. "Deedra is rather enigmatic to me. Not many people are."

The Muslim American Society, Abboud contends, goes beyond "just defending Muslims."