How Israel relies on Islamophobia

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.”

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