OPINION:
Though I fully expect to be labeled an Islamophobe, I refuse to blindly accept the oft-circulated contention of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, many Democrats and the mainstream media that Islamophobia is as serious as antisemitism.
First, CAIR measures Islamophobia “complaints” while the Anti-Defamation League measures anti-Jewish bias “incidents,” each with its own definition. For example, CAIR reported 8,061 complaints in 2023 and 8,658 in 2024, a 7.4% increase. The ADL reported 8,873 bias incidents in 2023 and 9,354 in 2024, a more than 5.4% increase.
Because of disparate criteria, meaningful comparisons cannot be made, though both organizations claim their numbers are a bellwether to predict hate crimes.
In addition, the public, politicians, media and racial and religious groups conflate incidents and complaints with actual hate crimes, often drawing erroneous conclusions that obfuscate Jew hatred.
Unlike incidents or complaints, “hate crimes” have a unique definition and are tracked nationally by the FBI on its Crime Data Explorer. The FBI defines a hate crime as “a committed criminal offense which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”
The FBI database remains the best official source for comparing actual hate crimes between racial and religious groups and tells us whether CAIR-reported complaints and ADL bias incidents have any relationship to actual committed crimes.
In 2023, according to the FBI, 236 hate crimes were committed against Muslims, or just under 3% of CAIR’s reported complaints. It seems clear that most reported incidents of Islamophobia do not translate into hate crimes, as suggested by CAIR.
However, in that same year, there were 1,832 anti-Jewish hate crimes, or more than 20% of ADL-reported bias incidents. That’s a compelling relationship to committed hate crimes. In 2023, this amounted to more than seven times as many anti-Jewish hate crimes as anti-Muslim hate crimes.
Almost half of anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 occurred in the fourth quarter, after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israeli citizens and kidnapped 250 more.
Yet up until the new Congress and President Trump were elected, administrations erroneously equated the rates of antisemitism and Islamophobia. By ignoring the severity of Jew hatred, they further legitimized anti-Jewish violence.
The 2024 FBI Hate Crime report will likely not be available until August. However, using New York City as a proxy for the nation, we see that the New York Police Department Hate Crimes Dashboard reported 43 anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2024 compared with 345 anti-Jewish hate crimes, a more than 700% difference.
The first quarter 2025 dashboard reported five anti-Muslim hate crimes and 74 anti-Jewish hate crimes, a difference of almost 15 times. Doing the math, the growth of anti-Jewish hate crimes will be even more staggering unless there is immediate and serious intervention.
The constant political and media drumbeat focusing on Islamophobia perpetuates the myth that it is equivalent to Jew hatred when it clearly is not. It diminishes the magnitude of the criminal targeting of the Jewish population, which well exceeds the rate for all other racial and religious populations.
In this environment, it becomes critical to concentrate on the disproportionate criminality targeting Jews on and off university campuses. This is not about benign protests or freedom of speech. Combating antisemitic hate crimes requires the effective implementation of serious consequences for perpetrators and enablers.
It also necessitates legislation and far-reaching changes throughout the criminal justice system; there simply needs to be the will to do it.
To paraphrase a quote often misattributed to Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Holocaust education, respect for and/or understanding of “the other side,” appeasement, tolerance, hiding from haters and empty condemnation of antisemitism have had no effect on reducing antisemitic incidents.
With the doubling of anti-Jewish hate crimes since 2020 and greater targeting of Jews, we must ask ourselves: “How have the usual solutions to combating Jew hatred been working out?” Looking at the numbers, the question becomes rhetorical.
Though there is much more to do, Congress and the administration are off to a good start by directly addressing the consequences of anti-Jewish criminal behaviors.
Jewish survival in the United States is now at a crossroads, and a universal decision to change course from rhetoric to results must be made. If unprecedented changes are not forthcoming, a path will have been chosen: one on which our country will be devoured by anti-Jewish hate crimes.
• Howard R. Zern has published numerous articles and letters on the Middle East, antisemitism, Israel and U.S. politics. During his 40-year banking career, he served as executive vice president of two banks.
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