Prejudice is not a joke

No two faith traditions are more similar than Islam and Judaism. Both worship a strictly Unitarian God. Both have sacred laws with strict dietary codes and detailed rules governing gender relations. Both insist on their texts being learned and taught in their original languages. Both refuse to deny their Middle Eastern roots.

The reasons used by many Muslimphobes to generate hatred against those deemed Muslim are almost identical to those used to generate hatred against Jews in the decades leading up to the Holocaust. Muslimphobic columnists and bloggers poke fun at Muslim dietary laws and cast aspersions on Muslims by citing out of context verses from the Koran discussing wars.

Eighty years ago, their ideological forebears cast similar aspersions on Jews. Even a cursory study of pre-Holocaust attitudes towards Jews in Europe and the West will show that yesterday's bloodsucking Jewish lenders have been replaced by today's bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists.

In New Matilda recently, Joanna Mendelssohn reminded readers that as recently as 1940, two prominent Sydney newspapers were quite happy to publish the opinions of a notable art critic who claimed modern art was a conspiracy of "the Jew dealers" whose aim was to "corrupt criticism, originate propaganda … and undermine accepted standards so that there should be ample merchandise to handle".

As Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland wrote of the British media last year: "I try to imagine how I would feel if this rainstorm of headlines substituted the word 'Jew' for 'Muslim': Jews creating apartheid, Jews whose strange customs and costume should be banned. I wouldn't just feel frightened. I would be looking for my passport."

Perhaps Freedland is exaggerating. Perhaps Muslimphobia is nowhere near as endemic as anti-Semitism was in the West before World War II. Yet the parallels between the rhetoric and attitudes of yesterday's anti-Semitism and today's Muslimphobia are striking. More unfortunate is the fact that prominent Jewish voices can be found among the chorus of Muslimphobes. Today's targets should be the last to deny the suffering of yesterday's victims. And the survivors of yesterday's crimes should be the last to join in today's lynch mobs.