Fighting antisemitism and Islamophobia need not be a zero-sum game

Evidence

Amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the widespread student protests against it across the United States, universities have sought to prove their equal commitment to Jewish and Muslim students by addressing both antisemitism and Islamophobia. This impulse to treat antisemitism and Islamophobia as if they are analogous phenomena emerging from this war creates a false equivalence that masks the deep asymmetries embedded in ethnic cleansing, apartheid, military occupation, forced starvation, and genocide. — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 23 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The all-too-familiar quips about the ‘Semitic’ character of Arabs or Muslims gain much of their illuminating pertinence here and should remind us that the subjects of antisemitism—that is, the antisemitic subjects—have long posited themselves in opposition to both Jews and Arabs, Jews and Muslims. … The formula is after all only too simple: Orientalism is antisemitism—which is to say that there is no document of one that is not at the same time a document of the other. And just as an antisemitic document is never free of Islamophobia, so Islamophobia always taints the manner in which antisemitism is transmitted from one owner to another, from one war to another. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1225 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In the face of much that pulls Jews and Muslims in different and sometimes opposite directions, when scholars and activists point to the shared foundations and functions of Islamophobia and antisemitism they highlight the common sources of prejudice that have afflicted both groups. Nevertheless, the very terms that we use in these discussions – Islamophobia and antisemitism – are sometimes used in ways that subvert this fragile solidarity. A greater awareness of where the terms come from and how they are used will bring this into view and make us more aware of the pitfalls and complexity we face. — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 706 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The global war on antisemitism defines itself against the Muslim as antonym; Every antisemitic document is also an Islamophobic document and vice versa; Fighting Islamophobia need not stifle legitimate criticism of Muslims — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 696 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Treating antisemitism and Islamophobia as analogous masks asymmetric power relations. #complicates (0.85) — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 23
• Antisemitism and Islamophobia are inseparable histories that always taint each other #complicates (0.83) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1225
• The terms ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘antisemitism’ can undermine the solidarity their comparison aims to build #complicates (0.80) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 706