In our rush to identify Muslim friends who think and act like “us,” we risk turning those who think and act differently into enemies. US foreign policy, before and after the War on Terror, has had devastating effects on millions of Muslims around the world, and even “good Muslims” would want to oppose US policy as well as the hate it produces at home and overseas. If we persist in portraying Islamophobia as an irrational force of misperception—the bad citizen’s response to the bad Muslim—we will render ourselves oblivious to Islamophobia’s ultimate causes, which are not simply ignorance or xenophobia. Pastor Terry Jones is rightly criticized for both, but he has never invaded and occupied an independent (Muslim-majority) nation-state, authorized the torture of (Muslim) alien combatants held in secret prisons, killed hundreds of innocent (Muslim) people in unmanned drone attacks, propped up (Muslim) dictators against the will of their (Muslim) subjects, and given orders to detain, deport, and assassinate (Muslim) terror suspects without trial.

XREF: Connects to critique of liberal framing of prejudice as purely cognitive/misperception error rather than materially driven.

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 706