Most commentators discuss antisemitism and islamophobia in the same sentence, to give the impression that they are being balanced in their thinking. They are not – this thinking is defective and only adds to the confusion.

The inability to agree definitions is confusing debate. The controversy on the definition of antisemitism created turmoil in the UK Labour Party.

Antisemitism is unjustified behaviour against semitic people. Jews and arabs are semitic people but antisemitism is almost always confined in practice to the Jews, as seen in the Wikipedia definition.

The readiness of the Labour Party to try to define antisemitism has encouraged muslim MP Tahir Ali [at 20:33 hrs] to promote the protection of Abrahamic religious texts, which the UK Prime Minister Kier Stammer again put in the context of islamophobia.

Jacob Rees-Mogg thinks Judaism has a clear definition as both a religion and a race [at 20:36 hrs]. It is not, and the conflation only fuels the muslim demand to similarly conflate muslims and islam.  It is about time that we returned to the correct meaning of words, especially as criticising islam is conflated as an attack on muslims as a group. This is another example of the now-common mistake of criminalising those who cause offence.5

There is only one human race. What people call “race” is better described as “ethnicity” or ethnic groups.

A phobia is a fear.  Its misuse began with homophobia, which was wrongly applied to opposition to homosexuality rather than fear of either homosexuality or homosexuals.  The confusion suited the homosexual lobby and the word was weaponized against critics.

The same has happened with islamophobia.

Islam is a religion and a muslim a person who follows islam.

What is islamophobia?

Islamophobia is thus ‘a fear’ of islam.  It is not even a fear of muslims, which would be muslimophobia.  However, islamophobia is not used like this.  Just like homophobia it is used for opposition to islam, the religion.   In effect, it is used as if it is blasphemy against islam.

It suits aggressive muslims to allow this confusion to persist and it is weaponized just like homophobia. 

Nevertheless there are some people who are afraid of islam, who can truly be described as islamophobic. Richard Dawkins has articulated his fear of islam and self-identifies as a cultural Christian. He does not believe in the doctrines of Christianity but he prefers the effects of Christianity upon society to the effects of islam. This is an admission that secularism, in which he truly believes, cannot cope with islam.

Until we return to the proper use of the English language, we can only expect confusion to reign.  “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” 1Cor 14:33.

Update:

16 Dec 2024: Kemi Badenoch wants a multi-ethnic country [at 22:14 hrs] rather than a multi-cultural one. Slowly, correct terminology is coming to the fore.

6 Jan 2025: others are questioning [at 21:26 hrs] the definition of islamophobia and Labour’s confusion over the matter. The Muslim Council of Britain [at 21:29 hrs] defines it as anger or discrimination against islam and the inability of reasoned debate is demonstrated once more.

3 Feb 2025: islamophobia as a term has conflated criticism of muslims and islam [at 23:06 hrs]. It may be that the Labour Party’s attempt to define antisemitism and islamophobia may go so far as to provoke a backlash to proper definitions, just as Trump has returned to two genders. The redefining of English-language words is a major source of civil discord – see the language battle.

4 Feb 2025: a critique [at 12:51 hrs] of Angela Raynor’s 16-strong council to tackle islamophobia. Dominic Grieve will be the Chair of the Council who earlier in 2018 developed the tendentious Labour definition of islamophobia. Discussed here [at 22:07 hrs]. I have no link to the BBC because I cannot find a BBC story about it. A Google search yields the following:

YouTube , GB News, Daily Express, The Spectator. Can you trust these politicians, the debaters and the critics? Why?

5 Feb 2025: conflating ethnicity with religion [at 20:23 hrs], in this case, islam.

7 Feb 2025: you can sign this Petition against the current APPG definition of islamophobia.

6 Mar 2025: John Swinney MSP, First Minister of Scotland, continues the language battle by conflating “anti-muslim hate” with islamophobia showing how much need there is to return to basics after years of confusing definitions in public life.