Islamophobia and Anti‐Semitism: Shared Prejudice or Singular Social Pathologies

Abstract

Islamophobia and Anti‐Semitism: Shared Prejudice or Singular Social Pathologies Michael Dobkowski There is no doubt: there has been a significant rise in anti‐Semitism and Islamophobia in recent years. Both have deep roots in history as well as being generated by more recent political and economic influences. Some see them as basically parallel phenomena, characterized more by their similarities than their differences. Others believe that anti‐Semitism is a unique prejudice that really stands alone and cannot be compared to Islamophobia or even racism. What I will attempt to do in this essay is to provide a theoretical and historical framework for approaching this complex and controversial question. I don't expect my analysis will satisfy everyone, but I do hope it will generate additional thinking on these impactful “hatreds.” The roots of Islamophobia Let me briefly begin with some context. Islamophobia is a term first put into use in 1997 in a report of the Runnymede Trust, a think tank in Britain launched by the British Home Secretary Jack Straw. It was given further currency by the 2001 UN conference on racism at Durban that most observers believe devolved from an examination of racism to an exercise in racism and anti‐Semitism. Israel was singled out for special criticism prompting the U.S. delegates to walk out. The official declarations eventually included a reference to anti‐Semitism, but this was counterbalanced by the addition of Islamophobia suggesting an equivalency between the two phenomena. Clearly, Muslim populations around the world are experiencing a hostile pressure and waves of discrimination that come from non‐Muslim populations of various sorts—the product of Hindu–Muslim tensions in India, of Christian–Muslim competition in Africa, of Jewish–Arab disputes in Israel and Palestine, and of anti‐Muslim immigrant sentiment in Europe and North America. There have been countless incidents of stereotyping, scapegoating, and bigotry directed against Muslims because of their religious identity. There exists a huge and profound ignorance about Islam. There is no shortage of voices proclaiming that fanaticism and intolerance are fundamental to Islamic tradition, that horrific violence against enemies of Islam and people defined as infidels have deep Qur'anic roots (Yoffie , 121). Many believe and are spreading the image that Islam is the enemy of the West, America, and Israel and that it is a religion prone to violence and terrorism. This tendency is certainly fueled by a long tradition of anti‐Muslim discourse in Western history and culture—from Dante to Don Quixote, to basic Orientalist scholarship; it has been exacerbated by ignorance, bigotry, and post‐9/11 fears. Islamophobia is real and to a certain extent is ingrained in Western culture. In his Orientalism, Edward Said demonstrated that the West's reified view of Islam has its roots in European colonialism. In his Covering Islam, he showed how these colonial notions continue to influence Western coverage of the Middle East in the 1990s. Islamophobia needs to be examined and confronted. It results from ignorance and from limited social contact, which is in turn buttressed by conflict and violence occurring around the world and its treatment by mainstream culture. This anxiety, like most prejudices, relies on a sense of otherness (Mattson , 129–130). Similarly, anti‐Semitism remains a persistent prejudice. The murder of Jewish shoppers at the Parisian Hyper Casher supermarket on January 9, 2015, after the killing of twelve people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, was particularly disturbing, not because it was the first such event but because it has become part of a troubling pattern. By every measure, there has been a rise of anti‐Semitism around the world—incidents of violence and intimidation, negative polling data, incitement, desecrations, rhetoric, etc. In 2006, Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Paris. In 2012, Mehdi Nemmouche killed four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels. In 2012, a rabbi and three young children were murdered at a Jewish school in Toulouse by Mohammad Merah. In early February 2015, there were killings in Copenhagen, and 300 Jewish graves were desecrated in Eastern France. Additionally, there were smaller affronts like the popularity of the quenelle gesture (a reverse Nazi salute...