In the latest edition of “Axis of Evil” politics Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued to the United Nations on September 29th that “Hamas is ISIS, ISIS is Hamas,” and that they are following the path blazed by Iran 35 years ago.
The Prime Minister in the process exposed the mutual relationship between Zionism and its crutch: Islamophobia.
What could a national resistance party in Gaza, an international jihadist organization in the northern Levant, and the state of Iran have in common? The Prime Minister would have you believe they all adhere to the same doctrine of militant Islam that is forever at war with the rational, liberal, ever-philanthropic West. Yet, with an accusation as inaccurate as George W. arguing that Iran and Iraq had anything in common other than a border, Netanyahu could only hope that the West heard “Muslim, Muslim, Muslim,” and jumped on its Crusading bandwagon.
Let’s be clear about the effects of Islamophobia: it dehumanizes. It ensures the lives of Muslims will not be valued equally to those of non-Muslims, especially the white ones. It allows President Obama to state to the New York Times that Israel was “scratched out of rock,” rather than colonized on the ruins of ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages.
We can thank Bill Maher for showing the world how this is not only a “conservative” problem. If a self-identifying liberal, an ideological beacon of tolerance, such as Maher can proclaim, “(Islamophobia) is not a real thing when we do it” and “it’s the only religion that acts like the mafia”; we officially have a cultural epidemic in the United States.
Islamophobia has permeated far beyond TV personalities spewing liberal exceptionalism when it comes to racism. In the eloquent words of Laura Durkay, the hit TV show “Homeland” is currently pitching its fourth season using “a blonde, white Red Riding Hood lost in a forest of faceless Muslim wolves.”
Excusing racist advertising as insignificant because it’s “just a TV show” protects the party not subjected to the discrimination from accusations of racism and bigotry. It promotes a subconscious level of consent that “this is indeed the world we live in,” ensuring the casual nod of approval when the same bigotry finds it’s way onto Boston subways:
Islamophobia homogenizes the Muslim world into a singular thinking-and-acting body with a nucleus of irrational militant Islam. Any peaceful, “liberalized” outliers remain on the cultural periphery, rather than the core. As a result, we are excused from distinguishing Hamas, ISIS, or Iran from one another because we’ve already predetermined their place in a homogenous body of Islamic-politick. Forget about context; don’t bother with history.
Israel relies on Western Islamophobic pretenses to further its foreign policy agenda in delegitimizing Palestinian grievance, leaving the occupied state’s colonization unquestioned. It dismisses responsibility for historical crimes committed against Palestinians such as ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and apartheid because the victims of the crimes are either part of a homogenous group of radicalism or subhuman. If the Palestinians were a Euro-Christian people, we can rest assured the West wouldn’t have stood idly by as Israel dropped chemical weapons on Gaza in 2008 and bulldozed over 28,000 Palestinian homes since 1967.
Zionism needs the Western sympathizing countries to remain Islamophobic. Despite Netanyahu’s plea that “it’s not Islam. Its militant Islam,” his country continues to benefit from the proliferation of the doctrine. As long as Israel floats in its “sea of red-Arab Muslim terror” (see above), it will remain in perpetual victimhood while simultaneously being a colonial-occupying power in Palestine.
Well done!
The Islamophobic rantings of so many and the ‘GWOT’ were crafted by the real ‘evildoers’. Bereft of facts and history, it was put forward and nourished– by PNACians and MICians and fed to a largely ignorant and bigoted public that was hell- bent on revenge.
I don’t think Israel alone has responsibility for Islamophia although it certainly constantly stokes the fires. I think as the final paragraph suggests there were, and are, other culprits in this crime (that’s what it is).
The degree to which this is pushed and promoted is part of what worries me the most about the I/P conflict. It’s not the singular issue but one of the main ones.
We have a first world state, with a first world military, where government and religious leaders open call for ethnic cleansing or genocide.
Anyone who thinks that they won’t do that haven’t been paying attention. We are permitting the same conditions to arise that existed during WW II.
It is evil in the true sense of the word. There is no moral difference between Israel and Hamas. Israel has the capacity and Hamas does not.
Paul Racco is absolutely right. Israel does not only benefit BIG TIME by Islamaphobia, but plays a big part spreading it. I have seen so many comments by hasbara gnats on website, attacking Islam, lying about what the Koran says, insulting the Prophet, and then spewing the zionist message at the same time. Islamaphobes like Geller and Geert Wilders (Wilders lived in Israel for two years during his youth and has visited the country 40 times in the last 25 years.[108] wiki) have strong pro Israeli feelings, and millions of dollars have been poured in for anti Islamic campaigns, so it would be interesting to know just who their puppet masters are.
Israel must turn world (especially US) opinion against Muslims, Islam and even Arabs, so that they can justify their violence, occupation, and illegal settlements. There must be the impression that Israel lives under an existential danger, and that danger from Muslims around them, to keep the aid and weapons coming.
That ad is yet another example of how deceptive they can be, it is the usual “we are victims of those around us (yet fails to mention last time they slaughter over 2000 of those Muslims) that is why we keep doing what we are doing”. Bill Maher and other mindless Hollywood types know that they have to keep the charade going, or else they will not get their contracts. It is all connected here. The US and Israel keeps stirring hornet nests, prodding it, arming it, and then when hell breaks loose turns around and says it is because of Islam. The extremist Muslims helped their cause by behaving violently, and stupidly doing Israel, and it’s apologists, the biggest favor, and giving the Islamaphobes more ammo to spread their propaganda.
There are anti Muslim attacks in Southeast Asia, in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, resulting in hundreds of Muslims being killed, and their businesses attacked, especially in Myanmar, started by lies and anti Islamic propaganda, setting majority Buddhists against minority Muslims and there are accusations that Western nations are behind it, Israel being one of the culprits.
Who knows what the master plan may be if this is indeed true.
As the wonderful David Hirst has pointed out, Israel, while touting the propaganda line of the Arab and Muslim world as one indistinguishable seething mass of humanity (assuming they think of Arabs as human at all) acts in precisely the opposite fashion in reality. Israel has always seen it as a priority to exploit the rivalries between different Arab and Muslim groups, and has supported every single secessionist movement in the greater Middle East, from the post-US invasion breakdown of Iraq, to the George Clooney Republic of South Sudan. As so often, Israel clearly does not believe its own propaganda.
I do believe there can, and will, be unintended consequences for those zionists pushing Islamophobia. There is anecdotal evidence of that in UK message boards. Over the past couple of years there have been stories dealing with circumcision as well as the halal method of butchering animals.
The usual zionist suspects were all over these stories railing against ‘the other’ when much to their horror the focus of the site’s readers became not just Islam and halal but Jewish circumcision and kosher butchering requirements.
Watching them trying to justify that there’s a difference was amusing.
The demonizing of others may well result in a lot of intentional blowback against themselves. Of course if that causes Jewish people to flee to Israel I guess that also furthers other ends.