Pro-Israel groups seeded the Islamophobia network to suppress campus Palestine activism
Evidence
As journalist Max Blumenthal argued, the Ground Zero Mosque controversy was “the fruit of an organized, long-term campaign by a tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives who first focused on Islamophobia soon after the September 11th attacks, but only attained critical mass during the Obama era.” He explains that their efforts began in the early 2000s when a coalition of pro-Israeli groups ranging from the ADL and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) came together to address what they saw as a sudden increase in pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 677
Categorization
- QUESTION: Useful for my comparative thread: would a state socialist regime produce an anti-Muslim loop aimed at suppressing a rival solidarity movement like the Palestinian cause, or is this specifically capitalist-imperial?
- XREF: connects to: Pro-Israeli groups incubated organized Islamophobia years before Obama. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 665; Pro-Zionist think tanks form the institutional base disseminating negative Middle East media; Pro-Israeli groups incubated organized Islamophobia to police campuses (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Zionist foundations explicitly funded the Islamophobia network
#corroborates(0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 698 - The Islamophobia campaign began as a campus-police project against pro-Palestinian scholars
#corroborates(0.92) - Clash rhetoric shifted domestic targeting to suppress pro-Palestinian activism
#corroborates(0.90) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 704 - Public anti-Islamophobia stances can function as a cover for pro-Israel politics
#expands(0.82) — Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophobia The…, 35 - A well-funded network of professional Islamophobes drives anti-Muslim activism in America
#expands(0.75) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 446