I have been travelling in the Middle East for the last few weeks and slightly regret returning to the maelstrom of ancient animosities and unbridgeable sectarianism that is modern Britain. But in my absence I see that one of the worst tropes of our time has been stalking unhindered across the land. That is, of course, the latest push to make an equivalence between anti-Semitism and the crock term ‘Islamophobia’.
It is not just in the UK that this play has been made. In America over recent days people have been able to follow the progress of the new Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar, with her supporters deciding to deflect attention from her expressions of anti-Semitism by claiming ‘Islamophobia’. Where this would once have been a fringe play, this time it has been adopted by the Democratic Party itself. So we are no longer talking about a harmless misunderstanding here. This is an equivalence that has developed legs.
In the UK it appears to have been embedded not only by anti-Semites in the Labour party who want to cover their tracks, but by the Conservative party and a range of others who ought to know better. It has been reported that the Conservative party has recently suspended a number of people who have said ugly and unpleasant things about Muslims on social media. Clearly where people have called for violence against any group of people then such people have no place in a political party. But this shaving of a dozen or so people from the Conservative ranks has been described as a cleansing of ‘Islamophobia’ from the party. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg has been happy to embed the idea that this is what has happened.
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