According to The Jerusalem Post, “Anti-Semitism is not the same as Islamophobia”. And neither is Anti-Semitism the same as racism or Islamophobia the same as racism. This all brings me back to an early post on the misappropriation of the word racism.

While both Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are forms of discrimation, of prejudice, they are not forms of racism. They do not act against a group of people because of their skin color or their race. Jews and Muslims come in all shapes, sizes and skin colors. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia act against a group of people united by religion and even in this, they are very different beasts, though they are both types of discrimination.

As Clemens Heni writes, “To equate anti-Semitism with racism, let alone to try and draw a parallel with the term Islamophobia (a word invented by the Islamic Republic of Iran), is therefore dangerous. It has nothing to do with scholarly research, nor with an accurate examination of the real and significant threats posed by Islamic Jihad.

A center for the study of anti-Semitism should be aware of these facts, and not equate anti-Semitism with Islamophobia or other forms of prejudice. That kind of postmodern relativist philosophy is just another way of refusing to research anti-Semitism as a phenomenon sui generis.”