In response to events on and since October 7, 2023, several US universities initiated task forces and speaker series on Islamophobia and antisemitism. This article questions whether the terms "Islamophobia" and "antisemitism" accurately identify the reverberations of Israel's war on Gaza in the United States. The author argues that university diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in response to October 7 and its aftermath display at least four kinds of obfuscation of the issues related to Israel's genocide on Gaza: erasing the context that would explain a rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism; concealing the community that is most impacted; clouding vast asymmetries in campus and governmental support for Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian communities; and approaching the problem as one of hate. The author concludes that these obfuscations prop up and normalize the Zionist position that is used to justify Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, and offers recommendations for countering them.

In July 2024, The Lancet estimated the Palestinian death toll since October 7 to be at 186,000 when accounting for indirect deaths resulting from the health implications of the violence.

QUESTION: Worth probing the Lancet's methodology for indirect-death estimation under the health strain of the conflict.

This article argues that DEI initiatives on US university campuses in response to October 7 and its aftermath display at least four kinds of obfuscation of the issues related to Israel’s genocidal, apartheid occupation of Palestine. First, most descriptions of Islamophobia and antisemitism workshops and task forces do not mention Israel, Palestine, or Zionism, thus disconnecting the rising incidents of Islamophobia and antisemitism from their context: Israeli settler colonialism, military occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Second, the term “Islamophobia” deliberately obscures the fact that Palestinians, who are not all Muslim, are the most impacted community, not Muslims. Third, antisemitism and Islamophobia are presented as equivalent forms of discrimination, clouding the vast asymmetries in US campus and governmental support of Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian communities. Fourth, university and government officials present antisemitism and Islamophobia as forms of hate, as if the problem could be resolved at the level of individual feelings, perceptions, and understanding, disconnecting them from US and Israeli state violence. This series of obfuscations props up and normalizes the Zionist position that is used to justify the atrocities against Palestinians being enacted in its name: that Palestinians are violent, antisemitic terrorists from whom Jewish people must protect themselves at all costs.

XREF: Relates to the author's broader argument about how institutional frameworks disconnect individual prejudice from structural state violence. Builds on: "In response to events on and since October 7."

Michigan State University's office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion organized four "Conversations on Antisemitism and Islamophobia." The description states that these conversations will explore "the history and current manifestations of these prejudices, which occur globally, nationally and on college campuses." Such descriptions present antisemitism and Islamophobia as equally on the rise with no clear reason stated as to why, effectively erasing nearly eight decades of Zionist ethnic cleansing and military occupation across historic Palestine. … Neither description mentions Israel, Palestine, Gaza, or Zionism, let alone military occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, or genocide.

XREF: Connects to broader debates about how university institutions frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and critiques of 'both sides' framing in campus diversity programming.

The context that is missing from such descriptions is that of Zionism, an ethnonationalist movement seeking to establish Jewish supremacy in Palestine. Zionism has perpetrated ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, a decades-long Israeli military occupation, apartheid, and now, an unrelenting genocide during which thousands of Palestinians remain unaccounted for and nearly two million people in Gaza are being forcibly starved. Beyond the human toll of its genocide, Israel has destroyed every aspect of Gaza's infrastructure—hospitals, schools, universities, businesses, places of worship, and even refugee camps. Rather than confront these undeniable truths—thereby understanding and nuancing Jewish attachment to Zionism, acknowledging its devastating impact on Palestinians since 1948, and critiquing the role of the US government in supporting it at all costs—US university DEI initiatives obfuscate them altogether.

XREF: Challenges DEI frameworks traditionally centered on race/gender, suggesting they sidestep Palestinian oppression. DEFINE: Defines Zionism as an ethnonationalist movement seeking Jewish supremacy, and names its consequences: ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid, genocide.

US university DEI initiatives that purport to counter Islamophobia and antisemitism aim to convey that all impacted students belong, regardless of their religious identities or political views. This deliberately unnuanced, liberal approach to diversity seeks to appear unbiased and all-inclusive by embracing a denial of history, power dynamics, and even genocide. Such denial casts Jews and Muslims as equally marginalized on US campuses and thus, in equal need of inclusion, reinforcing the notion of parity between Israelis and Palestinians, and that all Palestinians are Muslim.

DEFINE: Explains how 'parity' framing in DEI initiatives flattens historical and power asymmetries between Jewish and Muslim campus experiences.

"Islamophobia" implies that Muslims are the primary targets of discrimination or violence. But in Israel's war on Gaza and in its apartheid occupation across historic Palestine, it is Palestinians of different faith groups—Christians and Druze, among others—and of differing degrees of religiosity who suffer. After Palestinians, it is their allies of all backgrounds and across the world, including Jews, who are accused of antisemitism and of supporting terrorism. To be sure, the term "Islamophobia" is not entirely inaccurate because the majority of Palestinians are Muslim, and because it is difficult to disentangle anti-Palestinian racism from anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism.

Relatedly, when Jason J. Eaton shot three Palestinian students—Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali Ahmad, and Kinnan Abdalhamid—in Vermont in November 2023, reports explained that they were targeted because they were Palestinians who were wearing kaffiyehs and speaking a mixture of English and Arabic. While some news outlets named the violence as anti-Arab racism, others explained that it occurred in the context of a rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism resulting from the “Israel-Hamas war.” In other words, despite their identities as Palestinians being the primary motive behind Eaton's crime, Islamophobia is the default framework in place in the US mainstream to talk about violence against Palestinians and Arabs.

XREF: Connects to broader debates about how media frames violence against Arabs and Palestinians versus how those targeted describe it. Builds on: "The war on Gaza targets Palestinians across religious faiths, not only Muslims"

In 1987, Helen Samhan explained that "political racism" in the US against Arab Americans—in the form of civil rights abuses, violence, and harassment—is rooted in the Palestinian struggle, against which Zionists have been waging a war for over a century. In 2000, Nadine Naber wrote about Arab Americans as "ambiguous insiders" who are racialized through Islam, whether they are Muslim or not, and through US political interests and alliances—namely, with Zionism.

DEFINE: Defines the concept of 'ambiguous insiders' — Arab Americans racialized through Islam and US-Zionist alliances regardless of their actual religion. Builds on: "Islamophobia is the default US framework for anti-Palestinian violence"

However, the way it is being used during the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people obscures the specificity of anti-Palestinian racism. As Stanford University's Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Communities report aptly states: "Islamophobia has ironically become the 'low-hanging fruit' whereby some institutions, legislative bodies, and politicians are able to easily support Muslims while neglecting anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab bias."

DEFINE: Distinguishes anti-Palestinian racism from Islamophobia as separate categories of bias requiring distinct responses.

As Moustafa Bayoumi writes, "It is often assumed that Islamophobia is the driving force behind US anti-Palestinian bigotry. In fact, it's the other way around." He explains that Zionist-produced anti-Palestinian racism fueled anti-Arab racism, which later morphed into the Islamophobia of today. … But, as Bayoumi asserts, it is easier to address Islamophobia than anti-Palestinian racism because, "by thinking of Islamophobia primarily as a problem of religious acceptance, we shift the focus to religious tolerance, rather than reckoning with what the US might owe Palestine" as the primary enabler of Israel's atrocities.

XREF: Connects to scholarship on how racism morphs across targets; parallels histories of anti-Irish and anti-Asian sentiment in the US. Builds on: "Islamophobia is the default US framework for anti-Palestinian violence"

Anti-Muslim racism and anti-Palestinian racism are thus connected; they are produced at the intersection of state policies, media representations, and interpersonal interactions that regard Muslims and Palestinians as threats to the national security of the United States and Israel. Moreover, both are deeply shaped by the Zionist project that has been central to constructing the idea of the antisemitic Palestinian, Arab, Muslim terrorist. … As Noah Zatz writes, "translating an embrace of Palestinian life and freedom into a call for Jewish death relies on pervasive racist and anti-Muslim stereotypes of Palestinians as endemically hateful, violent, deceptive, and hostile to Jews, Israel aside." It is Zionism that has strategically distorted advocating for Palestinian rights to mean that Jewish people do not deserve safety and security, rather than meaning that Palestinians deserve safety and security, too, and that Zionism is deterring the possibility of equality for all.

DEFINE: Clarifies how anti-Palestinian racism connects to anti-Muslim racism and how Zionism strategically redefines the meaning of advocating for Palestinian rights.

Columbia University forced law professor Katherine Franke to retire after being part of its faculty for twenty-five years. Her pro-Palestinian speech was deemed in violation of Columbia's Division of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Policies and Procedures, revealing the irony of the uses of DEI.

XREF: Connects to broader debates about the limits of DEI initiatives and how institutional anti-discrimination frameworks can be turned against marginalized perspectives. Builds on: "DEI parity framing obscures asymmetric power dynamics in campus conflicts"

Amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the widespread student protests against it across the United States, universities have sought to prove their equal commitment to Jewish and Muslim students by addressing both antisemitism and Islamophobia. This impulse to treat antisemitism and Islamophobia as if they are analogous phenomena emerging from this war creates a false equivalence that masks the deep asymmetries embedded in ethnic cleansing, apartheid, military occupation, forced starvation, and genocide.

XREF: Connects to critical scholarship on false equivalences and the difference between prejudice against a minority versus institutionalized state violence and occupation.

Antisemitism is not the primary or only problem to address on US campuses, and Islamophobia and antisemitism are not equivalent forms of discrimination at this moment. This is due to two reasons: compulsory Zionism and the weaponization of antisemitism by US Congress. First, Zionism is normalized in the United States, or as Umayyah Cable states, Zionism is compulsory. Cable writes that compulsory Zionism not only manifests as a hegemonic discourse that requires and naturalizes unwavering support for Israel, but it also “functions to obscure Palestinian intellectualism, labor, and existence.” Accordingly, US government support for Israel and Zionism results in a clear condemnation of antisemitism, but the same cannot be said for Islamophobia. Since 2014, more than thirty US states have created anti-BDS laws to prevent individuals, organizations, and businesses from boycotting, divesting from, and calling for the sanction of Israel. Such laws normalize protecting Zionist interests in the United States. There is no equivalent law in place to protect Palestinian human rights.

DEFINE: Introduces 'compulsory Zionism' as a concept: a hegemonic discourse normalizing unwavering support for Israel and obscuring Palestinian existence. XREF: Connects to broader academic critiques of Zionism as naturalized ideology in American civic and political life. SEED: The asymmetry between anti-BDS laws (30+ states) and the absence of Palestinian-rights protections offers a strong data-driven essay angle. Builds on: "DEI policies can be weaponized against protected speech"

Furthermore, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce held three hearings on campus antisemitism, grilling university presidents from elite colleges and universities about their failure to prevent the spread of antisemitism, resulting in the resignation of several university presidents. House Republicans also threatened ten colleges with investigations into antisemitism that could result in losing federal funding. There are no equivalent hearings about Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian racism on college campuses.

[C]ontrary to the pervasive “both sides” framing of rising antisemitism and Islamophobia, this repressive wave is plainly asymmetric: there is no comparable institutional effort to suppress endorsements of the current Israeli state, despite its commitments to “Jewish supremacy” (as Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and others describe it) and ongoing commission of war crimes like collective punishment of Gazans (even setting aside the “genocide” question). The ubiquitous justification offered for this stark asymmetry is that calls for Palestinian freedom constitute threats of antisemitic violence against Jews in Israel and the U.S. alike.

XREF: Challenges the common 'both sides' framing applied to campus speech debates and antisemitism/Islamophobia discourse.

Donor influence plays a key role in this. Robert Kraft, owner of the US football team the New England Patriots, a major donor to Columbia University, pulled his financial support “over the treatment of Jewish students and faculty during pro-Palestinian protests at the campus.” And Bill Ackman, hedge fund billionaire, led the campaign to oust the first Black woman president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, when he was unsatisfied by her handling of campus tensions over the genocide. As Fahad Ahmad and Adam Saifer write, “When university administrators accede to donor demands, they punish students for enacting the core values and principles their institutions profess.” The influence of private philanthropy at universities has been on the rise and “poses a grave risk to free inquiry, critical thinking and the democratic ideals of universities.” Zionist groups are promoting McCarthy-like criminalization of Palestinians and their allies, furthering anti-Palestinian racism—and campus leaders are enabling it.

XREF: Connects to broader phenomena of billionaire influence over institutions—think Epstein-MIT, Gates philanthropy shaping policy, and the Koch network in academia. SEED: Angles into how mega-donor withdrawal is weaponized as de facto veto power over controversial speech, and what universities could structurally do to buffer endowment governance.

The second reason Islamophobia and antisemitism are not equivalent forms of discrimination at this moment is because when Zionist organizations redefine antisemitism to include criticism of Israeli policies and the US government, and when US institutions adopt this redefinition, the result is an inflation of antisemitism and the intensification of anti-Palestinian racism. On May 1, 2024, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism71—the new definition of antisemitism put forth by the IHRA. The US bill purports to combat antisemitism, but if passed by the Senate, it will further chill advocacy for Palestinian rights and enshrine anti-Palestinian racism in US law. Ultimately, if, as the IHRA definition implies, any expression of support for Palestinian rights is an assault on Jewish life, then the US government and Zionist organizations that embrace it are actually promoting anti-Palestinian racism.

QUESTION: Whether the IHRA definition adopted by the House in 2024 will pass the Senate and its practical legal effects on Palestinian rights advocacy is worth tracking.

In May 2023, the White House announced a National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, and in November 2023, the first-ever US National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate. … Biden and members of the Democratic Party use the term "Islamophobia" to perform caring about Muslims while simultaneously arming and funding a genocidal campaign against predominantly Muslim Palestinians—a genocide that is fueling anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia. In the twelve months after October 7, 2023, the US spent $22.76 billion on military aid to Israel, which includes supplying fighter jets, bombs, and missiles, and Biden approved an additional $680 million in arms sales to Israel in November 2024.

We recognize the violence and hate that Muslims worldwide too often face because of their religious beliefs—and the ugly resurgence of Islamophobia in the wake of the devastating war in Gaza … I've said it many times: Islamophobia has no place in our nation. Yet Muslims in the United States frequently endure baseless fearmongering, blatant discrimination, harassment, and violence in the course of their everyday lives. Today, Jill and I remember Wadea al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy brutally killed in his own home last fall—a crushing loss for his family and community, and a devastating reminder of how all Americans must unequivocally stand up against hate.

XREF: Connects to broader discourse on anti-Muslim hate crimes and the documented surge in Islamophobia following Gaza war events.

For example, the University of California, Santa Cruz, received $500,000 from the University of California (UC) as part of an initiative to "eradicate hate" by combating antisemitism and Islamophobia on its campuses. The funds are part of $7 million UC President Michael Drake pledged to help UC campuses to "combat rising hate incidents." The first phase of the plan includes training faculty and staff "on Islamophobia, antisemitism, and other forms of hate, along with support services for students led by organizations skilled with addressing the unique needs of students from different cultural backgrounds."

The US government's funding of genocide illustrates that the hate crimes it condemns are but one kind of violence Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims face. In condemning this violence as hate while funding a genocide against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims, the US government covers up that the hate crimes are shaped by its policies. In other words, when US state officials denounce "hate crimes" against Palestinians, Arabs, or Muslims, the rhetoric absolves them from accountability for producing the conditions that fuel anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim violence. In this way, the term "hate," like "Islamophobia," has been adopted in the US mainstream without question, including on university campuses.

XREF: Connects to broader critical scholarship on the politics of naming and how dominant discourses like 'Islamophobia' can obscure state responsibility.

Sherene Razack writes that using hate as an analytic “discourages the thinking that is required to make sense of the high numbers of murdered Indigenous women, police shootings of Black people, and a range of historical atrocities such as the Holocaust, settler colonial massacres and violent dispossession.” Hate is framed as an individual problem that the state condemns and helps to resolve. It is also an emotion, psychologized as an individual pathology that can be combated like a disease, rather than sets of policies that are enacted for political interests. This approach regards Islamophobia as an individual problem of hate between people, not as a structural issue connected to state policies or media representations.

QUESTION: What alternative analytic frameworks better capture the policy-driven, structural nature of these violences? Builds on: "UC campuses received millions to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia."

A central tactic in establishing the legitimacy of Zionism and the justification of Israeli state violence against Palestinians is to take a stance against Islamophobia to appear to be against discrimination, only to then use anti-Muslim tropes about terrorism to slander critics of Israel.

XREF: Connects to broader patterns of co-opting progressive language to legitimize state violence, a familiar rhetorical strategy in settler-colonial discourse. SEED: Potential essay angle on how liberalism's anti-racist vocabulary is repurposed to launder discriminatory positions, especially relevant to current discourse on Israel-Palestine criticism.

Using the terms “antisemitism” and “Islamophobia” results in universities, governments, and other institutions fabricating parity between Israelis and Palestinians where none exists. And in the midst of a genocide perpetrated by the former over the latter, with US leaders systematically misrepresenting what transpired before, on, and after October 7, it is no wonder that university administrators perpetuate these false equivalencies. … By directly naming Israel as an occupying power in violation of international law, the ICJ “put an end to the great Israeli lie,” as lawyer Michael Sfard argues, “which seeks to enjoy the powers of a military occupier but not be subject to the limitations and obligations imposed on an occupier by international law.”

XREF: Connects to broader discourse on the ICJ advisory opinion on Israeli occupation and international law arguments about state responsibility.

In this context, DEI efforts become complicit in anti-Palestinian racism when they are strategically used to cover up how university administrations uphold compulsory Zionism by oppressively disciplining faculty and students who are against the genocide. Punishing student and faculty activists accomplishes the opposite of DEI; instead of inclusion, it aggressively excludes. Given that it is effectively recoding and reversing social justice issues, it is ironic that DEI emerged in response to a backlash against affirmative action and to maintain a commitment to repairing a history of inequality through creating diverse, inclusive, and equitable campuses. … Today, DEI normalizes the Zionist ideology responsible for genocide.

XREF: Ties to critiques of institutional diversity frameworks that prioritize reputational management over structural change.

The unprecedented student encampments and demonstrations across the United States against Israel's genocide of the Palestinians show us that our students are demanding more from their academic institutions—that they not be complicit in mass murder. While most US universities tend to prioritize financial interests and the ideological commitments of donors, thereby rendering it unlikely that the following recommendations would be implemented, they are worth spelling out. University administrators committed to social justice should begin by naming anti-Palestinian racism and stopping the obfuscation that ensues from using the term "Islamophobia." Rather than focusing on the term "hate," they should focus on how US and Israeli government policies impact interpersonal violence. They should acknowledge the vast asymmetries in US government and university support for Zionist students over those who advocate for Palestinian rights. They should refuse to cower to Zionist donors, tactics, and pressure, and actively denounce the smearing of student and faculty advocates of Palestinian life as terrorist supporters and antisemites. They should work to obstruct and dismantle hostile campus environments that promote anti-Palestinian racism and put an immediate end to the misuse of university disciplinary codes and procedures to punish those exercising their free speech rights. Above all, they should acknowledge Israel's illegal military occupation of Palestine and its genocide in Gaza, refuse the normalization of Zionism, and reject the dehumanization of the Palestinian people.

XREF: Connects to ongoing campus speech debates and donor influence discussions in higher education discourse.