Source: South Bend Tribune
http://southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080327/NEWS01/803270340
Contemporary stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims as inferior, primitive and untrustworthy should have a familiar ring, according to Hussein Ibish.
Similar stereotypes were perpetuated historically by those who hate or mistrust Jewish people, said Ibish, executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership.
"It is impossible to look at anti-Semitic discourse and say it was bad and look at Islamophobia and say it is good," Ibish said Wednesday night during a speech at the University of Notre Dame.
Islamophobia is the term Ibish uses to refer to a fear or hatred of Islam, Muslims or Islamic culture.
Islamophobia has been growing in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but not necessarily as a direct result of the attacks, he told an audience of about 100 people in the Hesburgh Library auditorium.There is a correlation between defamatory rhetoric about Arabs and Muslims, and a rise in discrimination and hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims and even individuals wrongly believed to be members of such groups, such as followers of the Sikh religion, he said.