STAMP OF APPROVAL

After 5,000 Americans were killed by Islamic terrorists, one would assume that image-conscious homefront Islamic organizations like the American Muslim Council would find time in their busy schedules to denounce overseas Islamic governments that have abetted terrorism, while policing their own ranks for extremists. But one would assume wrong.

The American Muslim Council, for instance, has bestirred itself to repudiate terrorism only in general terms. (By Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby's reckoning, a feeble October 30 statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council chiding the Taliban for its continued embrace of al Qaeda is the farthest any of the main American Muslim organizations has gone toward denouncing terrorists by name.) Before last week, the AMC had reserved its strongest and most specific words, instead, for Rep. John Cooksey (who indelicately warned airline passengers to be on the lookout for anyone wearing "a diaper on his head") and the nameless Pentagon bureaucrat who proposed naming the Afghanistan campaign "Operation Infinite Justice." This last, explained AMC executive director Aly Abuzaakouk, was "offensive to some in the Muslim community."

Now the AMC has found an even bigger crusade, if you'll pardon the expression. To wit: mau-mauing the U.S. Postal Service into more vigorously promoting a stamp honoring Islam. Kwanzaa and Daffy Duck have commemorative stamps, after all. Why shouldn't the prophet Muhammad?

After a five-year lobbying effort by American Muslims, an "Eid stamp"--celebrating the Islamic calendar's two most important festivals, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha--went on sale at post offices across the country on September 1. Unfortunately, ten days later that . . . thing happened. And suddenly the big blue stamp with Arabic writing became almost as unpopular with postal customers as leaky envelopes with scary block writing.

September 11, Abuzaakouk tells the Kansas City Star, with no apparent consciousness of his own vulgarity, "has become a catastrophe for the stamps, too." So the AMC has sent out an action alert to its members urging them to buy extra Eid commemoratives, since the stamp must be reissued three times in order for it to become a permanent fixture in the United States Holiday Collection. The battle is being fought on many fronts. When the Postal Service recently distributed advertising posters for its holiday stamps--and the Eid stamp wasn't on them--the AMC flooded USPS headquarters with angry letters. And it worked. Hat in hand, the postmaster general issued a press release confirming that his agency is "proud to feature the Eid stamp . . . in recognition of the many outstanding contributions of the Muslim community here in the United States and throughout the world."

In the midst of this tolerance explosion, the American Muslim Council might seem a bit out of place. Before the organization became the purported moderate face of Islam, its officials were busy--on various undeniable, on-the-record occasions--expressing sympathy for the 1993 World Trade Center bombers and support for terrorist outfits like Hamas and Hezbollah. But, hey: That stuff happened, you know, more than two months ago, and perhaps it's time to let bygones be bygones. It's the holiday season, after all.
Val:Y