The Problems with the Sudden ‘Islamophobia’ Awareness Push

J onathan Chait is at it again. This one is a masterpiece of anti-anti-antisemitism intended to deflect from the crisis of the current moment for Jews not only in Israel but everywhere.

Chait criticizes various people on the right (including Charlie Cooke) for questioning why the Biden administration has leaned so hard since October 7 on emphasizing “Islamophobia.” In Chait’s telling, he is standing bravely against “the Republican idea that the Democratic Party’s opposition to prejudice in general somehow weakens any of the particulars,” which “is a projection of their own ethnographic view of the world.” Thus, he asserts, the issue is that only his side understands that “you can oppose antisemitism without condoning hatred of Muslims or Arabs. Likewise, you can oppose bias against Muslims and Arabs without condoning antisemitism.”

Why Now?

There are two fundamental problems with the administration’s “Islamophobia” push, and Chait studiously ignores both of them in order to completely miss the point of the criticism. The first problem is, why now? Why choose this particular moment to unveil a “National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia?” Why do this in the immediate aftermath of the worst massacre of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust — the killing of some 1,400 Jews just for being Jews — and when pro-Hamas radicals are tearing down posters of the hostages? Why do it when Jewish students are being terrorized on campus and targeted with death threats, being singled out in classrooms, pro-Hamas slogans are being chanted on campus, and Jewish journalists and schools and even friends of Jews are being targeted? Why make this the White House’s central argument while Jews are being told by law enforcement to stay home from their houses of worship, and even Jewish groups are advising their own that it’s unsafe to be visibly Jewish in public? Why is this the topic du jour when a pro-Israel demonstrator was just murdered in the street by a pro-Palestinian demonstrator? When even the FBI director acknowledges that antisemitic threats are reaching “historic levels” across the U.S., and worse is happening overseas?

Yet this White House has clearly mounted a strategy of trying to water down the historic gravity of this moment for Jews by saying “whatabout hatred of Muslims?” Consider the shameful performance of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre two weeks after the October 7 attack:

Asked the president’s “level of concern right now about a potential rise in antisemitism,” Jean-Pierre first discussed how there was no credible specific threat, but then pivoted to discussing Islamophobia, noting that “Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.”

As Phil Klein noted, comparing Biden statements put out on social media, “When mentioning antisemitism, Biden had to explicitly mention Islamophobia, but he does not mention the threat to Jews when calling out Islamophobia.” Why is whataboutism deployed in one case, but not the other?

Yes, there are periodic outbreaks of violence and hate crimes against Muslims in the United States — there has been one high-profile murder since October 7. It is useful for our leaders to periodically do what people such as George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani did after September 11 and caution against blanket group blame of innocent people. But there is, in the real world, nothing happening right now on that front remotely comparable to the global and domestic surge in virulent antisemitism on display on and after October 7. Why pretend otherwise?

Recall the furious denunciations by the Left in 2020 of anyone who dared say “All Lives Matter,” words that were treated as if they were a deliberate effort to deflect away from, and minimize, the concerns of black Americans about their safety from the police. Imagine if Donald Trump’s administration had chosen the moment following the murder of George Floyd to announce a national initiative to combat hatred of white people, and his press secretary had answered questions about anti-black racism by saying, “Actually, white people face a lot of bias attacks”? Would Chait have defended that as an effort to fight two kinds of hate simultaneously? Somehow, I think not.

In fact, at the time, progressives and liberals were promoting the Robin DiAngelo line that any defense of white people was “white fragility” talking.

Sure, one might argue, there is a particular and unique history to anti-black racism. Is it really so hard to acknowledge that antisemitism also has its own unique and dangerous history? I can think of some historic events that might illustrate that.

Democrats and their pundit class have no trouble being morally clear and specific about antisemitism when they think they can blame it on their political opponents and use it to score electoral points. That’s how they approached blaming Donald Trump and Republicans for the Tree of Life synagogue shooting on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections. Joe Biden even cited antisemitic slogans chanted at Charlottesville as his reason for running for president against Trump.

The practical effect of going into overdrive on “Islamophobia” right at the moment of maximum peril for Jews from antisemitism is to water down the potency of the national instinct to protect Jews here and at home. The real stakes right now are twofold. One is to examine at home how and from what sources antisemitism has set down such deep roots in American academia, why it is indulged by left-leaning mainstream media, and why it finds its most toxic spokespeople in Democrat members of Congress such as Rashida Tlaib (whom Chait declines even to mention). The other is to debate American support for, or attempted restraint of, Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas. Chait knows perfectly well that the enemies of Israel and Jews (who are almost invariably the same people, driven by the same motives and ideologies) want nothing more than to muddy the waters after October 7 and turn this into a “both sides” debate. Why does he want to help them do that?

A Sword and a Shield

There is also a second problem. Antisemitism has different sources and takes different forms, but the largest and most menacing form of it today comes from the political movement of radical Islam — a movement, not coincidentally, that gives us Hamas as well as similar groups such as Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ISIS, and al-Qaeda. “Islamophobia” is a term designed to stigmatize and obstruct any effort to look into the nature of that threat, or even to give it a name. As I have long argued, not only with regard to radical Islam but also groups as diverse as the alt-right and QAnon and Communists and the Birchers, it is essential to have a vocabulary with which to call out what you oppose — if you cannot name the thing, you cannot discuss it, let alone rally opposition.

One of the most effective ways for an extremist group to evade scrutiny is to blur the line between identification of the extremists and criticism of some broader demographic group (racial, religious, etc.) to which it belongs and in which it hides. The Mafia used to do this in branding any effort to name it as “anti-Italian discrimination.” Progressives constantly throw around terms like “Christian Right” and “Christian nationalist” and “white nationalist,” and would object strenuously if you told them that any such terms were “Christophobia” or anti-white prejudice. When they could not deflect criticism of Communists, they were and are often quite prickly about distinguishing Bolsheviks from social democrats. Yet, they got along with precisely this move when it comes to the political project of radical Islam. It is of a piece with why they persistently fail to name extremist groups on their own side, and why they are frantically trying to avoid doing so now.

Again, a thought experiment: What if Trump announced a “National Strategy to Counter MAGAphobia,” citing every example of death threats and violence against people in his coalition, and demanding that we all watch our language to avoid promoting MAGAphobia? Would Chait go along with this?

Sometimes, standing for your principles isn’t enough. Sometimes, you also have to engage with reality. A coordinated push to place “Islamophobia” on the same level as antisemitism in the events we have seen over the past month is disconnected from reality and serves to make it harder, not easier, to face the real problem of where the antisemitism is coming from. It is, in effect, anti-anti-antisemitism. It is shameful to give aid and comfort to that project, and doing so has real consequences.