This past month has seen the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
It has also seen the worst global spike in antisemitism since the Holocaust. According to Reuters, “In countries where figures are available from police or civil society groups, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and South Africa, the pattern is clear: the number of antisemitic incidents has gone up since Oct. 7 by several hundred percent compared with the same period last year.”
But there’s something peculiar about all the media reports about the extravagant spike in antisemitism: They all carry notes about a supposedly concomitant rise in “Islamophobia.”
This is odd, to say the least.
What the hell does Islamophobia have to do with antisemitism?
The answer is: precisely nothing.
Precisely nothing, that is, unless you wish to suggest that response to antisemitism is linked with Islamophobia — that if you wish to oppose radical Muslim antisemitism, that is an aspect of Islamophobia.
Which, of course, is precisely what antisemites are suggesting these days. Take, for example, Corey Saylor of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR is the most frequently cited group on “rising Islamophobia.” CAIR is a group that, by the way, was an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of Hamas front charity, the Holy Land Foundation. Saylor refuses to condemn boycotts on Jewish businesses; he told The Washington Post that “it is 100 percent on the table to criticize supporters of Israeli apartheid.”
CAIR itself accuses Israel of “textbook ethnic cleansing” and “war crime” for defending itself, trots out antisemite extraordinaire Linda Sarsour, and promotes the Hamas lie that Israel bombed a hospital (it was Palestinian Islamic Jihad). On Oct. 7, the date of the Hamas massacre, CAIR National tweeted, “We join @USCMO and the American Muslim community in reaffirming our support for the Palestinian people’s right to freedom and calling for an end to the Israeli occupation, which kills hundreds of Palestinian civilians every year, subjects millions of Palestinians to racist oppression, and sparks the deadly violence that we see again and again, including today.” On Oct. 7, before any Israeli response, they also called for an end to American aid to Israel and the Abraham Accords.
The group has not offered a single word condemning Hamas.
CAIR is, by any stretch of the imagination, a fomenter of antisemitism.
But that’s the point of focusing on supposed Islamophobia: The goal is to treat response to antisemitism as a form of Islamophobia. So Saylor claims that it is Islamophobia to publicize the names of students who sign petitions siding with Hamas, while claiming it is not antisemitism to boycott Jewish businesses.
Fascinating.
The legacy media feel the same way. That’s precisely why, since Oct. 7, the media have rushed to link antisemitism and Islamophobia, as though the two phenomena are part of a “cycle of hatred.”
That’s a disgusting and wrong take that excuses antisemitism through false charges of Islamophobia. But it’s extraordinarily common on the Left these days. One variation on the theme comes from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has emerged as one of the nation’s leading antisemites. She now accuses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of being an “extremist group” attempting to undermine American democracy and targeting “members of color.”
The Biden administration is falling into the trap of linking antisemitism and Islamophobia — a link that has the purposeful goal of demonizing opposition to Hamas. Fearful of their own base, the Biden administration announced yesterday a White House National Strategy to combat Islamophobia. Karine Jean-Pierre explained, “For too long, Muslims in America, and those perceived to be Muslim, such as Arabs and Sikhs, have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks and other discriminatory incidents.”
Why is the White House playing this game? Because they’re attempting to buy back the support of Muslims across the United States who are enraged that the White House has sided with Israel instead of Hamas. The latest polls show that nearly six in 10 American Muslims agree that “Hamas was justified in attacking Israel as part of their struggle for a Palestinian state.” The White House is trying to buy off the Hamas fans by jabbering about the supposed victimhood to which they are subjected.
It’s perverse. It continues to drive a false narrative that opposition to Hamas is opposition to Muslims — a proposition that Muslims themselves should reject, although precious few have done so publicly. It is not Islamophobic to oppose Hamas and its supporters. It is antisemitic to push that lie.
Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author; his latest book is “The Authoritarian Moment: How The Left Weaponized America’s Institutions Against Dissent.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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To HATE JEWS is a by product of antisemitism that is being made in our educational system. Who in all fairness can deny that Israel shouldn’t retaliate against having their citizens being brutally slaughtered and captured as well as American citizens? These protesters are just STUPID and a NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT to our country and I find their behavior disgusting!
Even Egypt and Jordan do not want Hamas (nor the Palestinians who voted to put Hamas in power) in their respective countries.
Islamophobia my arse.
The Leftists in this country driving this asinine narrative can pound sand.
What I want to know and probably there are a lot of others who would like to know – Why is there such a hatred of the Jews? I’ve really had limited contact with Jews so I don’t have any feeling about them one way or the other. But then I haven’t had much contact with anyone from the middle east. I spent a year in Iraq and a year in Afghanistan but unlike Thailand, Korea or Honduras you don’t interact with the population much. However, I have a problem with them bringing their problems to my doorstep and expecting me to take sides and solve their problems – at the cost of 17 billion dollars. Neither side is clean in this war – they have both hated each other since I can remember and that isn’t going to change. But there has to be some history here: when, where, and how did this hatred come about?
Islamophobia is not the problem It is just a clever avoidance of the true problem which is inability of Islam to live and let live Perhaps to be more compatible we should follow the Old testament Would that be satisfactory to them?
Ben, you know are too kind in you assessment of Biden and company “falling into the trap” of linking antisemitism and Islamophobia. They are the producers of the link. There is no real kindred spirit for Israel by Biden and company. Furthermore, Biden and company and many others, unfortunately are cowards when it comes to (upsetting Muslims), they are well aware of the proclivity towards violence in some of the most radical. Polls have been taken that, while most Muslims would not actually participate in violence towards non-Muslims, they by large do not object to the acts of violence by others on their behalf. God bless America and God bless Israel.
The terminology, “phobia,” used to describe the attitude of, vocally, differing with some one, or group, is incorrect. There is no “fear” of these people. There is a genuine, principle-based disagreement with the basis for belief or practice of other persons or groups and the costs or consequences of their beliefs or practices. This is a simple fact. People believe, fundamentally, that other people are simply wrong with respect to their beliefs or behaviors because they defy revealed truth or beneficial purpose which is accepted by a predominant culture in a given place. When certain violent practices become a regular occurrence for the members of a particular belief system, there is legitimate reason to become concerned about the safety and security of non-adherents to that belief system. There is cause for greater concern when people, having placed some hope in the concept of the created equality of all men, abuse freedom by denying security for the freedom of others. This could lead to “phobias.”
“The worst antisemitism since the Second World War”, according to Reuters who last I checked was still trying to convince its readers that Ukraine has Russia on the ropes.
Of course there will be a rise in antisemitism when if one suggests that it just isn’t right to mass slaughter children in Gaza, they are immediately denounced as being antisemitic. The Jews don’t recognize Christ as a deity while at the same time they are most assured that the entirety of the Jewish population can walk on water.
Someone please explain to me why the US sends over 8 billion a year for the hell of it as a gift to Israel and now are we are about to dump almost 17 billion on an emergency baby killing bill for the heavenly state of Israel. Israel, the recipient of this largess on our part is currently running a budget surplus I might add, whereas all this money we are going to gift Gods Chosen People will have to be borrowed from China cause we are dead broke.