In an essay published earlier this year, the American political philosopher Michael Walzer strongly criticized his left-wing comrades for their blindness to the dangers of Islamism. In a recent discussion with a group of British thinkers and activists, he was asked why the left seems paralyzed by a fear of “encouraging Islamophobia” while having no such qualms about encouraging anti-Semitism. His reply:
[T]he fear of Islamophobia is related to the hostility to Israel. There is this eagerness— I’ve heard this often in America, I don’t know if it happens [in Britain]—to describe the Islamic minority in the U.S., or in Europe, as the “new Jews.” Somehow, that gives you license to ignore the “old Jews,” and to focus on these “new Jews,” and to claim that we must not repeat with them what we did to the “old Jews.” But that can lead to any criticism being interpreted as hostility to this minority and a way of targeting this minority. The argument becomes “if you are critical of Islam, you are joining hands with the new xenophobes of the West.”
Read more on Fathom: http://fathomjournal.org/debating-michael-walzers-islamism-and-the-left/