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.

Evelyn Alsultany, Antisemitism and Islamophob…, loc. 4