The two hatreds have rarely been seen as related dangers. But they overlap even as Muslim and Jewish communities are pitted against each other The shooting at a mosque and school in San Diego has forced Muslim Americans to ask themselves painful questions. After the killing of three people in an armed attack last week, they now wonder if other places of worship will be targeted next, whether they can still send children to school and trust that they will return home unharmed, and whether they can still safely walk the streets as people identifiable , most recently after the stabbings in London’s Golders Green neighborhood. Over the past three years, against the backdrop of wars in the Middle East, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate have flared across the west, with each rising to record levels.
But these two hatreds have rarely been seen as related dangers, let alone confronted as a common threat to societies. On the weekend before the San Diego attack, tens of thousands rallied in London behind the anti-Muslim agitator Tommy Robinson, who declared a “battle of Britain” and called for “remigration”. “It’s time for many Muslims to leave this country,” he said. Across the west, as support for the far right surges, hostility towards Islam and Muslims has become central to its political platforms, and has spread beyond it.
When Muslims prayed publicly in London’s Trafalgar Square in March to mark Ramadan – just as other religions have done on their own holy days – leading Conservative politicians denounced it as an act of “intimidation” and “domination”. The violence in San Diego came out of the demonization of Islam and the dehumanization of Muslims that has been around for decades – now widely, and even casually, described as a backward or inherently violent religion that represents a civilizational threat. Meanwhile, Muslims are portrayed as people whose customs and values are irreconcilable with western ones. They are cast as a threat to the majority’s identity, culture, security and demography.
Antisemitism has its deep roots in vile conspiracy theories about hidden power, claiming that Jews form a shadowy elite that manipulates events through the secret control of governments, banks, the media and courts. These libels are centuries-old, and they persist today. George Soros – a Holocaust survivor and the founder of the philanthropic organization I lead, the Open Society Foundations – is a frequent target of antisemitic attacks that deploy ugly tropes to allege his human rights philanthropy is a plot to subvert societies. In 2018, these conspiracy theories led to a pipe bomb being sent to his home and were used Sometimes, anti-Muslim conspiracy theories fuse with antisemitic ones.
The clearest case is with the white nationalist “great replacement theory”, conjured up elite is replacing white majority populations with non-whites, mostly from Muslim backgrounds. The term “replacist elites” is used as a code for Jews. In 2017, white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Nigel Farage accused Soros of encouraging people to “flood Europe” and claimed Soros didn’t want the continent “to be based on Christianity”. It’s a single conspiracy theory that requires two elements at once: a Muslim population to fear, and a Jewish elite to blame.