Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and the New 'Palmer Raids' (Part II)

Inside the Right-Wing Playbook to Weaponize Jewish Pain

Here is where Islamophobia and antisemitism intersect. In Part I of this series I wrote about how government efforts to “combat antisemitism” are rooted in a history of antisemitic xenophobia that once led the federal government to detain and deport hundreds of immigrants, including Jews like Emma Goldman.

Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and the New 'Palmer Raids' (Part I)

Today, most of the students and scholars targeted by the U.S. government for removal are Muslims. The U.S. government and their representatives refer to these students and scholars as ‘Hamas supporters,’ as ‘terrorists,’ as ‘antisemites,’ as ‘anti-American.”

If you, like me, lived through the post-9/11 Islamophobic hysteria of the early 2000s, you may be struck by how similar this language is to the language then used to demonize all Muslims as somehow suspiciously un-American.

There is a weird and twisted racialization going on here, wherein the U.S. government has deemed Jews (who appear to be white, or at least white enough) as ‘our people’ who must be protected from ‘those people…