DENNIS PRAGER ON "ISLAMOPHOBIA" (UPDATED): Dennis Prager has written an article describing "Islamophobia" as a deceptive term. Here is part of that article, followed by an excerpt of his discussion of his article on CNN and debate with Christopher Hitchens, and Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR.

Why "Islamophobia" Is a Brilliant Term

What do anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobia have in common?

In fact, nothing.

But according to Islamist groups, Western media and the United Nations, they have everything in common. Anti-Semites hate all Jews, racists hate all members of another race, and Islamophobes hates all Muslims.

Whoever coined the term "Islamophobia" was quite shrewd. Notice the intellectual sleight of hand here. The term is not "Muslim-phobia" or "anti-Muslimist," it is Islam-ophobia -- fear of Islam -- yet fear of Islam is in no way the same as hatred of all Muslims. One can rightly or wrongly fear Islam, or more usually, aspects of Islam, and have absolutely no bias against all Muslims, let alone be a racist.

The equation of Islamophobia with racism is particularly dishonest. Muslims come in every racial group, and Islam has nothing to do with race. Nevertheless, mainstream Western media, Islamist groups calling themselves Muslim civil liberties groups and various Western organizations repeatedly declare that Islamophobia is racism.

...The fact remains that the term "Islamophobia" has one purpose -- to suppress any criticism, legitimate or not, of Islam. And given the cowardice of the Western media, and the collusion of the left in banning any such criticism (while piling it on Christianity and Christians), it is working.

UPDATE: I notice a link to here from Muslim Online, a forum where they were commenting on Hooper's false claim that Robert Spencer wrote that if you treat Muslims badly enough they will leave--the poster there claimed it was in a book. It was not. It was on Spencer's blog. Spencer himself responds to this and notes that this was in a comment, not part of something he himself wrote on his blog--a key distinction Hooper neglects to mention. When Spencer found out about it, he deleted the comment and banned the person who made it.

Technorati Tag: Islamophobia and Dennis Prager and Christopher Hitchens and Ibrahim Hooper and CAIR.