Today in Islamophobia

Today in Islamophobia: In Australia, the country’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, said the government had “sufficient time” to respond to a report he handed down in September of last year and in a recent statement claimed they are “taking too long to act on the issue”, meanwhile in Jerusalem’s Old City, large crowds of ultranationalist Israelis gathered chanting racist slogans like “Death to Arabs” and “May your villages burn” as they began an annual parade through the Palestinian areas of the Old City, and lastly in the United Kingdom, Councilor re-elect Shazad Fazal of Calderdale, West Yorkshire said in response to an escalation in online hate directed at him during the recent election cycle that, “I have been involved in politics since the age of 17 and I have never seen anything like this”. Our recommended read of the day is by Adam Johnson for The Intercept on his new book  “How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza”, where he investigates U.S. media coverage of the war in Gaza in an effort to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that U.S. media coverage of the war in Gaza was inextricably biased in favor of Israel. This and more below:

United States

We Analyzed Thousands of News Articles: Here’s the Proof of Pro-Israel Bias in Mainstream Media | Recommended Read

For my new book “How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza,” I attempt to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that U.S. media coverage of the war on Gaza was one-sided, racist, dehumanizing, and often veered into outright incitement. I examined over 12,000 articles from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, Politico, Axios, USA Today, and The Associated Press, along with 5,000 TV segments that aired on CNN and MSNBC. The focus is on center-left media outlets influential with the Biden administration during the first year of the conflict — with an emphasis on the first few months, when Israel firmly established its narrative justifying the genocide, rendering mass death inevitable. Here are seven statistical findings that prove the U.S. media’s bias against Palestinians. The media’s penchant for invoking a nation’s “right to defend itself,” typically followed by the rationalization of mass civilian killing, was reserved almost exclusively for Israel. read the complete article

Sharia-Free America Hearing marked by attacks on Muslim advocacy groups

Muslim civil rights groups denounced the second "Sharia-Free America" hearing this week after a group of House Republicans attempted to highlight the threat of Sharia law to the U.S. Constitution and institutions, especially in Texas. "What brought us out is the absurdity of a Sharia hearing in Congress when there's actually no real threat of Sharia law or imposition of Sharia law in the U.S.," Haris Tarin, vice president of policy and programming at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, told Medill News Service after the hearing. "It's a farce. It's a fear tactic. And unfortunately, it impacts real American Muslims," Tarin said after the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government session on Wednesday. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who founded the 63-member "Sharia-Free America" Caucus in December with Keith Self, R-Texas, has held two hearings. In February, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights organization, designated the caucus an anti-Muslim hate group. read the complete article

America’s new counter-terrorism strategy is a partisan polemic

Sebastian Gorka, America’s counter-terrorism tsar, is abrasive. Critics of the Iran war are “testicularly challenged”. Journalists are “scumbags” or “punks”. As for terrorists, they must be vapourised into “red mist” and their bodies stacked “like cordwood”. Mr Gorka takes pride in his work. “I pinch myself everyday,” he enthused on a podcast last year. “I’ve been waiting about 25 years for this job.” It should therefore come as little surprise that America’s new counter-terrorism strategy—hailed by Mr Gorka as his “life’s work”—is more polemic than policy. For a magnum opus, it is short: just 16 pages, including covers and pictures. It is also light on detail. The strategy identifies three “major types of terror groups”: narco-terrorists and transnational gangs; Islamist terrorists; and violent left-wing extremists. It says nothing about threats stemming from the war in Iran or the long-standing menace from right-wing extremists. Described as “apolitical”, the document is anything but. Donald Trump’s name appears dozens of times in a nominally non-partisan memo. “It’s not a strategy,” says Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s an ideological, political document that fails to analytically assess the counter-terrorism threat.” read the complete article

United Kingdom

In the UK, Muslim votes are treated as a problem to be managed

Westminster is absorbed in the spectacle, and understandably so. But for British Muslim communities, the lasting significance of those elections lies elsewhere. The May vote brought a real surge in Muslim civic engagement, with initiatives like the Muslim Council of Britain’s “Get Out The Vote” campaign helping to drive registration and turnout. Yet that engagement was too often met with suspicion rather than welcome. During the campaign, too many political actors and media outlets fell back on lazy, divisive narratives about Muslims, spreading misinformation and misrepresenting how our communities actually engage politically. Commentators repeatedly raised the spectre of “family voting”, claiming that Muslims, particularly Muslim women, were pushed or directed to vote in certain ways, as though they had no agency of their own. Others spoke of “sectarian voting,” portraying Muslims as a single bloc voting on the basis of religion alone, rather than as a diverse community with a multiplicity of political views. These terms were used to cast suspicion on Muslim voters, particularly in areas where Muslim electoral participation is more visible. Elements of Reform’s rhetoric have at times overlapped with anti-Muslim and Islamophobic narratives also promoted by more extreme figures such as Tommy Robinson and Rupert Lowe, the MP who leads the far-right populist Restore Britain party. This rhetoric has included stoking fear around “political Islam,” calling for mass deportations, and advancing a more restrictive vision of British cultural identity. read the complete article

Hate is on the rise in Britain. We want to tell a different story

Reform’s “Vote Green, get illegals” policy was denounced by both Labour and the Tories. But in reality, all three parties have been competing to appear tough on immigration, pandering to those most susceptible to fear-mongering and race-baiting. Reform is ahead of the curve but the general direction of travel, from both politicians and the public, is deeply concerning. Whether it’s the so-called “small boats” crisis, the spread of disinformation and racism online, protests against asylum hotels or the flag-waving “Operation Raise the Colours”, the message is right now is clear: if you’re not from the UK or even look like you aren’t, you’re the problem. Concerned about losing voters to Reform, the Labour government has lurched to the right, conducting record numbers of immigration raids and invasive border checks while proposing stricter rules around settlement rights. The media has played a central role in all of this. Barely a day goes by without a headline or policy that demonises or dehumanises migrants and asylum seekers. Hate and division dominate the news agenda. Over the past seven months I’ve read more than 1,000 stories on the topic in the UK media. Many blame the country’s problems on immigrants, implying all asylum seekers are a burden on the state – or simply sexual predators. While this is nothing new, these voices have become emboldened, their language more extreme and less challenged. read the complete article

'I've never seen anything like this': Councillors report rise in abuse

In the hours after he was re-elected, councillor Shazad Fazal scrolled through the messages he had been sent on Facebook. Several were congratulatory - he's a popular figure in the Park ward of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, having served there for Labour since 2021. But there were also more than 200 posts containing vile abuse, including branding him a paedophile and a terrorist, with another asking how many women and children he had sexually assaulted. The Halifax-born politician was also told to "get out of the UK", "speak English" and another poster said he was a "cancer" who needed to be deported. "I have been involved in politics since the age of 17 and I have never seen anything like this, not in any of my previous elections," Fazal told the BBC. Fazal's is not an isolated experience. Councillors of all parties and backgrounds have reported a significant increase in the abuse they have faced both in person and online, with last week's English local elections a tipping point for many. read the complete article

International

Ultranationalist Jews recite racist slogans during march into Jerusalem's Old City

Large crowds of ultranationalist Jews gathered Thursday at the foot of Jerusalem's Damascus Gate, chanting racist slogans like "Death to Arabs" and "May your villages burn" as they began an annual parade through the Palestinian areas of the Old City, a procession often characterized by violence. The young, mostly male group did their chanting under the eye of Israeli police, who had barred off parts of the plaza for journalists to cover the event safely. Normally a bustling marketplace for Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem, the area was devoid of Palestinians, many of whom had barricaded themselves inside their homes and closed their shops for the day. The march commemorates what Israel calls Jerusalem Day, marking Israel's capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war. This year it comes as the country moves toward new elections, and Israel's hard-line government is eager to bolster support among its religious and nationalist base. read the complete article

The backlash to revelations of sexual torture of Palestinian prisoners aims to raise the cost of speaking out

What’s most shocking about the latest accounts of sexual torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody is not just their inherent horror. It is that despite so much evidence being so visible for so long, the machinery of abuse and denial continues to deepen. Nicholas Kristof’s recent reporting on the issue in the New York Times brought important public attention to the issue. But abuses in Israeli custody have long been reported by former detainees, lawyers, doctors and journalists, and documented by human rights organizations. Since October 2023, this body of evidence has revealed a horrific reality: Israel’s prison system has been transformed into a criminal network of torture camps. In his reporting, Kristof documented harrowing testimonies from Palestinian men, women and children describing widespread sexual abuse, rape and humiliation by Israeli soldiers, prison guards, settlers and interrogators. Israel’s response to the reporting followed a familiar script: deny the abuse, lash out at those who document it, and protect the system that made it possible. The ministry of foreign affairs dismissed the New York Times piece as “Hamas propaganda” and has gone so far as to declare that Israel will sue the New York Times. Other officials and commentators reached for the familiar charge of “blood libel”, called for the New York Times to be shut down, and broadly did everything in their power to delegitimize not only the work of Kristof, a world-renowned journalist who has covered sexual abuse in conflicts across the globe, but that of anyone trying to bring this abuse to light. read the complete article

Australia

Islamophobia envoy speaks out after government fails to respond to landmark report

The author of a landmark report on Islamophobia in Australia says the federal government is taking too long to act on the issue. The Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, said the government had "sufficient time" to respond to the report he handed down in September last year. Mr Malik recommended inquiries into Islamophobia, another into anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism, the effect of counterterrorism laws on Muslim communities and more support for Islamic facilities and communities. He and other Muslim leaders and organisations have voiced frustration with the government's failure to respond to the report and its 54 recommendations designed to combat the rise of "anti-Muslim hate, prejudice, dehumanisation and vilification". The first recommendation was for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to "confront Islamophobia with equivalent urgency to other discriminatory practices, and provide it with the same rights, protections, and legal recourse". "So I urge the government to respond to my 54 recommendations urgently." read the complete article

Think we missed something, or have suggestions for what you’d like to see here?
Contact us at: bridge@georgetown.edu