"Islamophobia" Is Far From Being the "New Anti-Semitism": Stop Minimizing Anti-Semitism by Equating the Two (Pt. I)

One year ago today, Hamas terrorists snuck into Israel's borders and carried out the worst pogrom against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Israeli civilians were raped, kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and decapitated. The death toll from this horror was over 1,200 civilians. Some of those murdered that day were not even Israeli. They were young adults attending a music festival that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

What should have been a time for the world to rally in support of Israel ending up being a wave of global anti-Semitism. The innocent lives lost were barely cold in the grave and the anti-Semites were already protesting against Israel. The moral inversion in which "rape is resistance," kidnapping Holocaust survivors is social justice, or "the situation in the Middle East is complex" justifies parading unconscious women or decapitating babies is astonishing. Do not be at all surprised if there are protests across the globe today cheering on the murdering, raping, genocidal terrorists who carried out the atrocities on October 7, 2023. 

Another aspect that has been astonishing is lumping together anti-Semitism with "Islamophobia" in response to October 7. Any response given in October 2023 by the Biden White House about anti-Semitism included a caveat for "Islamophobia." The European Parliament has made a similar grouping, and Human Rights Watch did something similar in December 2023.

I imagine you have noticed my objection towards equating anti-Semitism with "Islamophobia." I do not deny that discrimination against Muslims simply for being Muslim exists. I will explore those data in Part II of this blog series. Abusing citizens for merely believing in Islam, vandalizing mosques, or attacking those who are visibly Muslim is morally wrong. Part of being in a tolerant, multicultural society means supporting their freedom of conscience and freedom of worship as long as it does not harm others vis-à-vis the non-aggression axiom. On the other hand, "Islamophobia" is nowhere being nearly as heinous as anti-Semitism for a number of reasons. 

How long has each form of bigotry existed? Anti-Semitism has existed since the Egyptians per the account in the Book of Exodus. The Jews were in exile from the year 69 to 1948 when the State of Israel was created. Whether it is the ancient Romans, the English Expulsion of 1290, the Spanish in 1492, the pogroms in the Russian Empire, rule under various Islamic polities, or the Nazis carrying out the Holocaust, the Jews have dealt with this universal hatred for a few millennia. 

If the past year has reminded me, anti-Semitism has not died. It simply evolved and skyrocketed in the past 365 days. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recently released a report about anti-Semitism in the United States one year after October 7, 2023. Anti-Semitism was already at an all-time high before the 10/7 attacks. The anti-Semitism has only skyrocketed since 10/7, whether in the form of increased harassment, assaults, vandalism, threats, intimidation of Jews, or violent anti-Semitic posts on social media. 

While the United States has the largest Jewish diaspora population, European Jews have also been pressured to stop expressing their Jewishness in public. Do not be surprised if today, October 7, 2024, does not have pro-Hamas rallies across the planet celebrating this pogrom because Muslims do not feel the same pressure to hide their Muslim identity or their political opinions about the Middle East as Jews do. 

In contrast, let us ask when did Islamophobia begin. According to this publication from Cambridge University's Review of Middle East Studies, "Islamophobia" was developed as a concept in the late 1990s. While the term was first used over a century ago, the Runnymede Trust takes credit for inventing the term as used in its contemporary meaning...in 1997. That makes sense to me not only because hundreds of thousands of Muslims emigrate to the western world while many Muslims comfortably assert their Islamic identity in public. Why am I not surprised that "Islamophobia" is a new concept? 

Muslim polities have a history of colonization and oppression. Muslims have not been persecuted around the world for centuries like the Jews have. If anything, Muslims persecuting non-Muslims dates all the way back to Muhammad in the Qu'ran. Whether it was the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Almohads, or the other caliphates, non-Muslims living under Muslim rule were either relegated to a second-class status of dhimmi, forced to convert, or executed.  There were a number of other caliphates throughout history that illustrate my point regarding Islamic colonization.  Israel is the size of New Jersey. When you compare Israel's square mileage (8,469 square miles) to the Arabian Peninsula (1.2 million square miles), never mind the entire Arab-speaking world, the Middle East, or Muslim world, it makes you wonder who the real colonizers have been in the Middle East. 

There will be more to explore in Part II of this series.