![[Farid Hafez]](https://bridge.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-04-at-10.45.01-AM.jpeg "Farid Hafez")
The Bridge Initiative is a multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed in Georgetown University.
The Bridge Initiative aims to disseminate original and accessible research, offers engaging analysis and commentary on contemporary issues, and hosts a wide repository of educational resources to inform the general public about Islamophobia.
Research & Resources
Normalizing the far right in Austria
This op-ed by Bridge Initiative Senior Research Fellow Farid Hafez originally appeared in TRT World. In the past, far-right parties would have been ostracized, but now it’s a question of how to accommodate them. This poses dangers for minority rights, and in particular, Muslims. Early memories For the first time in post-World War II Europe, when the…
When the Fear of Muslims Leads Jews to Whitewash the Far Right
“In Austria today, the real anti-Semitic threat is from Muslims, not Nazis,” argues Martin Engelberg, one of Austria’s first Jewish post-war members of parliament, who ran for the Liste Sebastian Kurz, the new name for the former Christian Democratic Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). In reply, Benjamin Guttmann, from the Austrian Union of Jewish Students argued,…
Austria’s new programme for government: En route to a restrictive policy on Islam?
This op-ed by Bridge Initiative Senior Research Fellow Farid Hafez originally appeared in Qantara. The word “Islam” appears a total of 21 times in the Austrian coalition’s new programme for government, which is entitled “Zusammen. Für unser Österreich” (Together. For our Austria). By contrast, there is not one single mention of right-wing extremism or fascism in the coalition programme published…