I'll take Islamophobia for $300, Alex

Islamophobia, as defined today by the progressive left is a fear or Muslims, or moreso an unrequited angst over false beliefs.  A phobia, as per any dictonary is an irrational fear of the unknown.  Is the term a fair application to those who question Islamic doctrine, or is it a method to squelch any narrative which asks critical questions and demands truthful answers?

For those who use Islamophobia as a label to tar their opponents, there are equal the number of those who take the moniker as a badge of honor, using it to raise the flag and institute debate about Islam.  It would appear that those who believe Islamophobes are a threat to interfaith dialogue, bridge-building and tolerance are themselves the real Islamophobes, as their denial of free speech on Islam, and their demands to stop all inquiry into Islamic texts and tenets is part of the public "unawareness" campaign designed to stop all debate on Islam.  Those who support the idea of Islamophobia are the ones truly frightened of what Islam is.

There are two articles today which explore both sides of the "Islamophobia debate".  The first, from Max Blumenthal at TomDispatch.com Dec 19 tries to make the case that there is no good Islamophobe, that the clarion calls about the dangers of Islam are just so much smoke and mirrors, and those who purport to educate on Islam are nothing more than haters, bigots and racists(what race is islam again?).  Max Blumenthal agrees that this anti-Muslim feeling can be blamed on unemployment, housing forclosures, and world-wide recessions.

From Mr. Tom Engelhardt, founder of TomDispatch, "No wonder then that, as hard times hit, as the financial system seemed on the verge of collapse, as unemployment soared and a massive wave of home foreclosures swept into view, increasing numbers of Americans became prey to any wacky explanation for our troubles, none more so than the idea that Islam was somehow responsible, that mosques and Islamic centers meant for a sliver of a minority here were capable of imposing anything, no less a way of life on this country, or that Sharia law (of all things) might somehow worm its way into state legal systems, or that YouTube was a hotbed of terrorism worthy of suppression, or... well, you name it."

Max Blumenthal believes, as does Mr. Engelhardt that the American people, you and I, have become "prey" to "wacky explanations" that Islam has something to do with the encroachment of sharia law, that US mosques could not be in any way hotbeds of jihadist recruiting, and that YouTube could be used for anything other than safe, social intercourse.

Max goes on, er off... "
Little of recent American Islamophobia (with a strong emphasis on the “phobia”) is sheer happenstance.  Years before Tea Party shock troops massed for angry protests outside the proposed site of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, representatives of the Israel lobby and the Jewish-American establishment launched a campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism that would prove a seedbed for everything to come. That campaign quickly -- and perhaps predictably -- morphed into a series of crusades against mosques and Islamic schools which, in turn, attracted an assortment of shady but exceptionally energetic militants into the network’s ranks.

Ah yes, there it is, the Jews are to blame for everything, again.  This tired canard is used as a primary weapon, taqiyya as it were to divert attention from the doctrine of Islam which requires Muslims to "...slay and be slain for Allah..." (9-111), among other wonderfully embracing suras.  Lets not forget to also label any opposition to your opinions as "shock troops" in order to demonize them and show them as nothing more than black-booted thugs mercilessly trampling on the poor Muslim.

Max goes on with paragraph after paragraph, trying to make the case that all of us are "Islamophobic" because we just don't get the whole conspiracy/Zionist/right wing connections.  Read it all to get the full gist of what Max means.

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Next we have, from the other side this article from Boston.com Dec 8 by Jeff Jacoby where his explanation of Islamophobia makes much more sense.  Mr. Jacoby says "

When th(e) provocative question "Is America Islamophobic?" appeared on the cover of Time in August (of 2010), the accompanying story strained to imply, on the basis of some anecdotal evidence, that the answer might be yes. The FBIs latest compendium of hate crime statistics from 2009 suggests far more plausibly that the answer is no.

If Islamophobia is rampant across the US, with locals taking up pitchforks and torches, then why are Jews taking the brunt of hate crimes and Muslims are almost at the bottom of the list?  Could it be, there is no rampant Islamophobia?  Hmmmm...

From the Time article

In 2009, according to data gathered from more than 14,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, there were 1,376 hate crimes motivated by religious bias. Of those, just 9.3 percent — fewer than 1 in 10 — were committed against Muslims. By contrast, 70.1 percent were committed against Jews, 6.9 percent were aimed at Catholics or Protestants, and 8.6 percent targeted other religions. Hate crimes driven by anti-Muslim bigotry were outnumbered nearly 8 to 1 by anti-Semitic crimes.

Mr. Jacoby finishes with this: "But surely the most obvious takeaway from the FBI’s statistics is not that anti-religious hate crimes are so frequent in America. It is that they are so rare.  (...)for American Muslims as for American Jews, the tension and hostility are the exception. America’s exemplary tolerance is the rule."

We are a nation who tolerates behavior which other countries would never allow.  This is, for better or worse what America does regarding those less able, or fortunate than the mainstream.  There is no Islamophobia coarsing through the veins of Americans, rather it is a clear and visceral acceptance that there is something wrong within Islam which needs attention.