Strong ZOA Quote in Article About Biden’s Islamophobia Strategy Which Excluded Jewish Input

“In fact, due to the disproportionate involvement in terrorism by radical Muslims and their overt enmity toward Jews and the Jewish state, it is rational and understandable for Jews and others to feel a deep concern about Islam and some Muslims,” Klein said.

(December 14, 2024 / JNS) The White House’s first-ever “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate,” which the Biden administration announced on Thursday, runs for 67 pages.

It features “more than 100 executive branch actions and more than 100 calls to action to every sector of society to prevent and address such violent attacks and to ensure that Muslim and Arab Americans enjoy the liberties and opportunities that are the bedrock of our country,” per the White House.

Although a search for “Jew” returns 40 results in the strategy and “antisemitism” yields 44 results and “antisemitic” 12 results, the White House does not state in the press release or the 67-page document that any U.S. Jewish groups were involved in the strategy.

After the White House unveiled its “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism” on May 25, 2023, the Biden administration listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a contributor. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) told JNS at the time that he was “disappointed and appalled that CAIR—an organization that has peddled antisemitic tropes and has ties to extremist, anti-Israel groups—played any role in the U.S. national strategy to counter antisemitism.”

Months later, shortly after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, CAIR blamed the Jewish state for being attacked. By December, the White House had scrubbed references to CAIR from the antisemitism strategy, although archived versions of the original page remain available online.

Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, told JNS that he is not surprised that the White House didn’t contact the ZOA about the new strategy on Islamophobia.

ZOA has criticized the “Biden-Obama regime regularly for four years on their hostile-to-Israel appointments, their hostile-to-Israel policies and their intentionally strengthening Iran enabling them to more readily harm Israel,” Klein told JNS.

“It is clear that Obama’s influence is a major factor in the Biden administration’s actions toward Israel and Iran and Muslims,” Klein said.

The ZOA leader told JNS that he doesn’t believe there is “a real Islamophobia, which means an irrational fear of or irrational hostility to Islam.”

“A disproportionate number of those attacking Jews and Israel on campuses are Muslims,” he added. “The attacks on Jews in Amsterdam, France, Germany and England are disproportionately perpetrated by Muslims. Islamist actions have made it clear that President Bush was wrong when he called Islam a ‘religion of peace.”

Islamophobia Concerns Are Attempts to Silence Critics of Muslim Antisemitism

By Jonathan S. Tobin

(December 16, 2024 / JNS) It’s possible to argue that anything the Biden-Harris administration does in its final weeks in office is irrelevant and may soon be overturned by President-elect Donald Trump once he is sworn in next month. That may well apply to the announcement last week of a “National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate,” issued by the White House. It is nonetheless noteworthy because it reinforces the myth about an American epidemic of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate that is routinely published and broadcast by the mainstream media. Equally important, it gives the imprimatur of government approval to a false analogy to the very real problem of antisemitism about which Biden and Harris also issued a “National Strategy” paper last year.

Any discussion of Islamophobia in America must be prefaced by an acknowledgment that hatred directed against racial, ethnic and religious minorities exists. And like any form of prejudice that leads to discrimination or violence, it is deplorable.

Even as we condemn any act in which an Arab or Muslim-American is targeted because of their ethnicity or faith, it is essential to understand that the attention given to Islamophobia is not being driven by anything that could accurately be described as a crisis. Rather, it is part of a false narrative that seeks to divert us from an unpleasant but vital fact about the subject. Most of what those who promote this issue consider Islamophobia is not anti-Muslim or anti-Arab hatred but merely criticism of Muslim and Arab hatred of Jews.

A fake problem

So, while the lame duck administration’s report may be considered a pious affirmation of opposition to prejudice, it doesn’t deserve even the tepid applause it has received. On the contrary, it is a conscious effort to balance a genuine problem with one that is bogus. And in doing so, it undermines the minimal and largely ineffective efforts undertaken by the government to address the very real surge in Jew-hatred that has been building in recent years and then exploded after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

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