Islamophobia Jumps the Shark

(Peter Power/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

Oh FFS.

Of all the problems in the world right now, Islamophobia doesn’t make it into the top 10. Muslims aren’t walking around America fearing for their lives–pretty much the entire academic and cultural elite are celebrating Muslims and marching against the Jews.

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It’s pretty hard to look around and see Muslims as persecuted people; there are demonstrations for and by them everywhere you look.

The political class has been much more split–Jews have been traditionally a strong Democrat constituency and there are a disproportionate number of Jewish politicians and donors–but other than that part of the Left-wing establishment, the Muslims are backed by a powerful constituency of mostly young liberals and Leftists.

Ask any Jew how welcome they feel in their liberal political circles.

With tensions rising in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict’s eruption, no doubt some Muslims have found themselves to be unpopular in some circles, but if you look at the recent rise in hate crimes the victims are almost all Jews.  If you go by that metric, Muslims have much more sympathy than Jews in the ruling classes.

That’s why, I suppose, the White House is dropping a “National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia.” If something isn’t much of a problem then “solving” it should be a cinch.

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Of course, the “National Strategy” has little to do with actual Islamophobia, and everything to do with winning the State of Michigan in 2024 and not offending the Gen Z voters who have decided that “settler colonialism” is a thing they are deeply passionate about. It isn’t hate crimes or threats that worry the White House, but the fact that they are in a bit of a political pickle.

Antisemitism is and always has been a much larger problem–if you care about hate crimes as Democrats claim to–than Islamophobia. According to the FBI north of 50% of all religiously-motivated hate crimes are against Jews, despite their being around 2% of the population.

Jews are victims of hate crimes 7x more often than Muslims. Seven times.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that our college campuses and city streets are filled with people who hate Jews with a passion, while it takes deep dives by seriously concerned journalists to find Muslims who feel threatened. The FBI counted about 150 hate incidents against Muslims in all of 2022. In a nation of 330 million that isn’t exactly mind-blowing.

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Antisemitism has become such a big problem on our college campuses that major corporations and law firms are taking notice, warning that potential hires who express sympathy for genocide might not make great colleagues to work with.

As for Muslims? Wear a Hijab and even a vicious antisemite can get hired at Georgetown’s prestigious School for Foreign Service.

We aren’t talking about activists who oppose Israel’s invasion of Gaza; we are talking about hardcore supporters of violence against Jews who celebrated Hamas’ slaughter of innocents. They are marching in our streets, releasing manifestos, and chanting “gas the Jews.”

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The White House clearly sees they have a problem: on the one hand, a major constituency of theirs expects them to support Israel and condemn Hamas; another cheers on Hamas atrocities and demands that they bash Israel. Biden needs both to win next November.

So they punt. They express support for Israel while prodding them to surrender to calls for a cease-fire. They then turn around and pretend that they are the defenders of oppressed Muslims in the United States, a group that basically doesn’t exist.

As with so many Biden policies, it is incoherent, even self-contradictory. The only way to solve the Hamas problem is to eliminate Hamas, and they know it. On the other hand, the Biden foreign policy has been about bribing Iran to be nice, and Hamas is Iran’s proxy. Obviously, the policy has been a dud–it was spearheaded by an Iranian spy for God’s sake!–but it’s hard to see how Biden shifts course.

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So we get mushy talk about Islamophobia as if Muslims aren’t treated with kid gloves in the United States while Jews face an unprecedented outburst of hate unseen in America or the West since World War II. It is another version of trying to bribe Iran–treat your friends badly, and your enemies well.

Norm MacDonald has a joke that sums this phenomenon up perfectly:

Yep. We need a National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia. That will fix it.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 22, 2024
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