Islamophobia is not the same as antisemitism

Judaism isn't regarded of as an ethnicity, it's a religion. Jews are considered an ethnicity. Do you really expect me to take your word over a silver-locked Wikipedia page? If you can't accept this fact then I see no point in continuing this discussion.

Woah. I thought we were having a good discussin and raising some interesting points. I don't see the need for snappy responses like that.

I don't see how Jews are an ethnicity because they are not 'ethnically' the same.
Lots of Jews tend to come from similar places but that in and of itself does not make Jewish and ethnicity.

All forms of discrimination against Jews and Muslims is bad.

You, yourself are defining the terms to suit your own narrative.

You're defining anti-semitism as criticism of Jewish people but Islamaphobia as critiicsm of an ideology.

Definition of Islamaphobia : 'dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.'

Both Jews and Muslims have had their ideoligies criticized as well as being persecuted as people for being that religion.

But they are an ethnicity.

From wikipedia: The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים ISO 259-3 Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group.

You saying that they aren't doesn't change the fact that they are. It also doesn't change the fact that antisemitism has historically (and continues to be) prejudice against Jews due to their ethnicity. Which is worse than prejudice against people due to their ideology. We all hold prejudism against groups of people for the ideologies they believe. Maybe it's Tories, maybe it's lefties, but it's no different to Islamophobia.

You, yourself are defining the terms to suit your own narrative.
You're defining anti-semitism as criticism of Jewish people but Islamaphobia as critiicsm of an ideology.

Definition of Islamaphobia : 'dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.'

Coming from someone who keeps ignoring legitimate sources that prove that Jews are considered an ethnicity?



The difference is one that I've already explained. Muslims have been persecuted for following Islam. Jews have been persecuted for their lineage.

Yes, because "Semite" refers to a ethnic group, not a religion.
Islam refers to a religion, not an ethnic group.
It really isn't that difficult.

You are conflating two separate elements. If you want to use a term that refers to "prejudice against Muslims" you cannot also use it to describe "dislike of Islam".

That's like saying if you were anti-Apartheid, you hated South Africans.

Jews are a religion. Not a race and not an ethnicity.
As a rule of life, look to the substance, not the label.
I don't see the need for the distinction.

Both Jews and Muslims are persecuted for being Jews and Muslims. I think it's unnecessary and inappropriate to argue one is worse than the other.

Of course criticsing the Jewish ideology

Jews are a religion.

Jews are a religion. Not a race and not an ethnicity.
As a rule of life, look to the substance, not the label.
I don't see the need for the distinction.

Both Jews and Muslims are persecuted for being Jews and Muslims. I think it's unnecessary and inappropriate to argue one is worse than the other.

I don't feel that Jewish people are persecuted and criticized as a 'people' more so than Muslims or other religions.

Sure the ideology/religion of Islam is criticised, as is Judaism and both are criticised and persecuted as people.

Just to take one example, 8000 Muslims were killed in the Bosnian massacre for being Muslim. How is that not being persecuted for being Muslim?

I never said Muslims are not persecuted.


I could easily post screenshots of extreme antisemitic hate speech from this website which is indicative of wider antisemitic feeling, this year after the Charlie Hebdo attack Jewish people were gunned down in a Kosher supermarket and this was sadly far from the only such attack in Europe. You can feel whatever, but you cannot deny this trend of Jewish people being singled out for extreme violence because people who are literally insane believe in this myth of covert Jewish power.

But again, you are missing the central issue. European Jews during WW2 were not selected by their claims of belief. They were selected by their ancestry. The Nuremburg Laws were not enacted to preserve religious purity, but racial purity.
You clearly have an agenda any seem happy to ignore history in order to promote it.

So you think is "unnecessary and innapropriate" to draw a distinction between systematic attempts to exterminate a particular ethno-religious group, and the criticism of some Muslims for defending the Quran's permission to keep slaves.

OK. Whatever.

I have often heard people imply that the reason antisemitism is seen as worse than Islamophobia is due to them nasty "Zionists".

But there is a good reason why Islamophobia is not as bad as antisemitism. Islamophobia is prejudice against followers of Islam. It is hostility towards people due to their religious beliefs. Thus it is no different to hostility towards Christians, or in fact hostility towards anyone because of their ideological beliefs. It's not different to disliking someone for being socialist, conservative, libertarian, feminist, whatever...

Antisemitism, on the other hand, is racist bigotry. Jews are not only a religious group, but a race. Thinking that Jews are inferior, that they are greedy, that they are elitist; these are all racist views.

Racism is worse than bigotry against people for the opinions they have. An ethnic Jew can't stop being a Jew, nor does his race speak for him or tell you anything about his personality. On the other hand, A Muslim may leave the faith and no longer consider himself a Muslim, and your ideological beliefs most certainly do tell you something about your character, especially when they are as big a part of your life as a religion is to religious people. One could feel that Islam is repulsive, and then go on to conclude that anyone who follows the religion must be of such a contrary mind to oneself that one would find them very dislikable. This would be an ignorant view in my opinion, as the world really isn't so straight-forward. But I hardly think it is comparable to racism.

Now you are misrepresenting what I said.
I'm saying it's inappropriate to draw a distinction between Jews killed for being Jews and Muslims killed for being Muslims.

Do you think in the Bosnian massacre in which 8000 Muslims were killed for being Muslim, that the perpetrator asked each one their views on religion?

I think the number was closer to 80,000, unless you're just talking about Srebrenica. In any case, this isn't a good example to use. When Yugoslavia broke up, there was a lot of vying for power between different creeds. There was a vote held over whether the Bosniaks should have their own country. The Bosniak Muslims voted in favour, but the Bosniak Serbs boycotted it because they wanted a country for themselves. When the Bosniak Muslims won the vote, a number of Bosniak Serbs formed their own army and decided to ethnically cleanse Bosnia of it's Bosniak Muslims.

In Bosnia (and much of what used to be Yugoslavia) your religious identity represents your creed, rather than your actual beliefs. A Bosniak Muslim is a different creed to a Bosniak Serb. If you are a Bosniak Muslim who stops being a Muslim in Bosnia, people will still consider you are Bosniak Muslim, because "Bosniak Muslim" refers to your ancestral ethnicity there, rather than your actual religious beliefs. It's very very stupid and many people who live there hate it, but that's just how it is. The Bosniak Serbs were prejudiced against the Bosniak Muslims as an ethnic group. They didn't care about other Muslims around the world, and they weren't persecuting the Bosniak Muslims for being Muslims, they were persecuting them because of their creed.

This is pretty incomparable to Islamophobia. Islamophobia is dislike or prejudice against Islam or Muslims. It's not dislike of a particular ethnic group of people who happen to be Muslims. That's just plain old racism. Islamophobia is disliking people for being a follower of Islam. What the Serbs were doing was eradicating the Bosniak Muslims because of their ancestral ethnicity. Now that is very much comparable to antisemitism, but to call it Islamophobia would be disingenuous.

Then I don't understand the relevance of this. Because you're obsessing over the label -rather than the substance. Disliking Islam as a religion is comparable to disliking Judaism as a religion. Just as disliking Jews for merely being Jews is the same as disliking Muslims for being Muslim.

Both ideologies are criticized and both Jews and Muslims have been persecuted for being Jews and Muslims.

You seem to obsessing over the labels of 'anti-semitism' and 'islamapahobia'.