John Esposito, the Saudi-funded director of Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative, is on a mission to convince the world, one academic conference at a time, that “Islamophobia has metastasized” as a “social cancer in America.”
Speaking alongside his protégé, Dalia Mogahed, Bridge Initiative Senior Fellow Engy Abdelkader, and others at the September 22 “Islamophobia in Focus: Muslims and the Media” conference in Washington, DC, the notorious Islamism apologist pitched this message to an audience of about 130.
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Much of the discussion revolved around the well-worn canard that media distortion inflates concerns about Islamist terrorism. “While studies show that a greater security risk emanates from white supremacists, right-wing extremists and ultra-separatist groups, both here in the United States as well as in Europe,” Abdelkader told the attendees, “when we hear about terrorism in the news, it tends to be in the context of Muslims and Islam.”
In fact, this claim, which originated with a 2015 New America Foundation (NAF) study of American domestic terrorism, has long since been debunked. Among other flaws, the study’s finding that right-wing terrorists have claimed more lives in America after September 11, 2001 than Islamist terrorists ignores the relatively minuscule size of the country’s Muslim population. Additionally, recent massacres like in Orlando, Florida – America’s largest modern-day mass shooting – have increased the NAF’s latest tabulation to 94 deaths from jihadists versus 48 from right-wing extremists since 9/11.
The 2016 Europol report on terrorism in the European Union (EU) directly contradicts Abdelkader’s claim. In 2015, 150 people died as a result of jihadist terrorist attacks in the EU. Accordingly, the “main concern reported by EU member states continues to be jihadist terrorism.”
Alleging negative media bias against Islam and Muslims, Esposito called for putting “constructive stories” in the media that “contextualize more.” He referenced “hard data that says that Muslims are politically, economically, socially, and educationally integrated” in the U.S., although the real statistical record is mixed. While income and educational levels of Muslim Americans are encouraging, they have disproportionately high incarceration rates. Europe’s larger Muslim populations are plagued by high incarceration rates, high unemployment, and poverty.
Esposito struck an Orwellian note when he announced that, like racism, the term “Islamophobia” should signal to any critic of Islam that “what you are doing is unacceptable in society.” This phobia exists when the “irrationality and the fear” is “of Islam itself, the religion,” he maintained, objecting to the many Americans who “buy into the line that Islam is a particularly violent religion.”
Yet, Esposito’s personal recollections suggested the value of examining Islam skeptically rather than through rose-colored lenses. He noted that Islam and Muslims were “virtually invisible” in American society and academia before Iran’s 1979 revolution, such that “very few people knew who Ayatollah Khomeini was, let alone what was going on in Iran.” Esposito’s friends were ”the top experts on Iran,” but “they never looked at the vitality of Islam in the modern period until they went to do research on their dissertation and happened to do field work in Iran.”
Spurious accusations of “Islamophobia” will only increase the chance of future academics repeating this pattern.
Esposito himself has learned little since the Iranian revolution’s violent outrages perpetrated in Islam’s name. Repeating a talking point from previous presentations, he decried that, in the U.S., “Islam has been seen through the lens of the Iranian revolution,” including “Death to America” chants and the Iranian hostage crisis. This supposedly “distorted lens” affects American policy so that “it makes it a lot easier to go along with a coup in Egypt… rather than saying, if you don’t like your government, you have elections.”
He never explained whether elections under Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government would have been more meaningful than those under Iran’s theocratic tyranny.
Esposito’s peddling of discredited theories continued while answering audience questions, telling one attendee that “most Jews are not Semites, and indeed many of them are from Europe.” In fact, scholarly research and DNA analysis has demonstrated that most Jews around the world trace their origins to Israel and have a common ancestry. This includes European Jews, who do not descend from medieval Khazar converts, as false theories often claim.
Esposito condemns “statements that brushstroke an entire population” of 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, yet has positioned himself as a leading opponent of critical inquiry into Islam.
Charges of “Islamophobia” can only have a chilling effect upon vitally needed discernment between Muslims seeking personal piety and Islamists pursing dangerous sectarian political agendas. The losers will be Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Cross-posted from Independent Journal Review.

jihad3tracker says
I have said this before, and many Jihad Watch readers know it already — Georgetown University sold its Jesuit soul for $$$$ when Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal gave the founding money for John Esposito’s Islam-loving phony “Muslim – Christian dialogue” enterprise.
THERE IS NO ACTUAL MEETING OF BLUE-COLLAR CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS IN SPONSORED FREE OPEN SEMINARS WITH QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSIONS.
INSTEAD, THEY HAVE ENDLESS TAQIYYA FROM ULTRA-PRIVILEGED JIHADISTS LIKE DAHLIA MOGAHED, ALONG WITH DISGUSTING “SNOWFLAKE” APOLOGISTS FOR ISLAM SUCH AS JORDAN DENARI DUFFNER.
I will add more remarks to this thread later today (Saturday).
jihad3tracker says
For those of us who have ten spare minutes over this weekend, and want to send a bit of pushback against the relentless preening egotism of Engy Abdelkader, John Esposito, Jordan Duffner, here are some contact points:
ABDELKADER — berkleycenter@georgetown.edu
ESPOSITO AND DUFFNER — bridge@georgetown.edu
Make the subject line of your email NEUTRAL so it will actually be opened and read, because Esposito and his ACMCA coterie of two-legged tree lichens FOLLOW EVERY POST ON JIHAD WATCH. They will already be hypervigilant in the wake of Andrew Harrod’s post.
And, let me suggest that if you do not already have a GMAIL ADDRESS SPECIFICALLY FOR EMAILS TO STEALTH JIHADISTS, please create one and use it for this.
Robert Spencer has, for several years, posted items regarding NATHAN LEAN (coward-in-the-shadows, dime store thug, cogiitive deficit IQ bearer) is also at Esposito’s office, and he would dearly love to overload our GENUINE MAIN EMAIL ADDRESSES with the kind of spam Allah-worshipping cretins consider useful.
Don McKellar says
Well written.
The whole Islamophobia thing is only a smokescreen, a distraction. Is it any wonder it is fully embraced and promoted by crooked Hillary?
Cretius says
Wrong on all counts.
A phobia is an abnormal or morbid fear or aversion. There is nothing abnormal about recognising Islam and all the barbarism it brings. Therefore, there is no such thing as Islamophobia.
Secondly, being against a system like Islam is not racism. Racism is the belief that one race is inherently better than another simply on the theory that human abilities etc. are determined by race. By definition, Islam is not a race.
Lastly, Islam is a fascist totalitarian political system that includes a religion of jihad, bigotry, intolerance, sexism and barbaric cultural practises. Muslims are their own worst enemies. They even kill each other! No one has to lie about Islam. Simply bear witness to the intolerance, bigotry and hatred spread by imams online. Muslims demand respect and rights that they deny to everyone else. This makes them unfit immigrants/refugees to modern western democracies.
Allowing such a poisonous political system/religion in is tantamount to committing national suicide.
jihad3tracker says
Hello Cretius — I appreciate that excellent summary of Islam and its sick essence.
David Wood is one of our frontline brilliant counter-jihad experts, with many videos on YouTube. Because weekends like this one (Saturday around 1 PM in my time zone) can bring many new visitors to Jihad Watch, here are a couple of David’s DOSES OF REALITY:
1. “Three Stages of Jihad”, running a longish 25 minutes, so please view it when not distracted or multitasking, and containing a series of passages from the Qur’an and Sunnah as proof of David’s assertions. BARRY HUSEIN SOETORO EVEN DOES A GUEST APPEARANCE, so have a pail ready to vomit into.
2. “Muhammad – the White Prophet with Black Slaves”, running about 10 minutes, and filled with citations from the Hadith to back up David’s commentary, plus a big slice of his impish razor-sharp wit. By the way, the first 2 words of that video are a bit hard to understand: “POP QUIZ . . .”
JOHN SPIELMAN says
I despise Esposto who is nothing but a two bit academic whore for his pimp Saudi prince
JawsV says
Yes, I detest old John E who is a pathetic shill for the Islamic barbarians. He’s a demon, he should go to hell. Yes, Islam is a “particularly violent religion” you old fool. Now, grovel and kowtow to your Muslim masters.
davej says
“A social cancer in America”. That accurately describes the relentless Islamization of this country and it’s even more advanced attack on Europe.
Whereas “Islamophobia” is a made up word used to denigrate anyone who opposes this death cult.
Angemon says
Thus making the word “islamophobia” a dog-whistle meant to get people to go after the person accused.
davej says
These people destroyed the World Trade Towers and attacked the Pentagon and now we let them buy up our Universities and lecture us about our awful “Islamophobia”.
Wake up America!
Peter says
Islamorealism, not “phobia.”
No Fear says
Esposito condemns “statements that brushstroke an entire population” of 1.6 billion Muslims.
I condemn statements in the Quran that brushstroke entire populations of non-muslims. e.g. Quran 8:55 non-muslims are the vilest of animals
Peter says
80% of humanity
Cretius says
And 80% is the bottom line.
Michael Copeland says
Memo to Esposito:
It is not a brushstroke: it is a book.
Michael Copeland says
“…the line that Islam is a particularly violent religion” is what Esposito objects to.
Could he speak with Ayatollah Yazdi?
Yazdi says, “Violence is the heart of Islam”
traci94 says
We need a new term to take the place of “Islamophobia”. A “phobia” indicates an irrational fear of something. It is NOT irrational to fear Islam.
Esposito said “when we hear about terrorism in the news, it tends to be in the context of Muslims and Islam.” That’s because 99% of terrorism is committed by Muslim in the name of Islam! We don’t even need statistics to tell us that. And, believe me, if white supremacists, right wing extremists, etc were committing acts of terrorism, we would absolutely hear about it. Remember the guy who killed people at a black church in Charleston? We heard about that for a long time, and there was so much national outrage about the Confederate flag that many, many places took that down.
It really pisses me off that he is being deceptive about Islam and is putting a lot of people in harms way by his deception. I guess he’s probably getting a lot of Saudi money. It’s unfortunate that people like him and Hillary are willing to sell out their own country for money.
Adrian Johnson says
I have long used the neologism “Islamonausea” as the very thought of Islam makes me want to vomit.
JawsV says
That’s funny!
Kay says
“Charges of “Islamophobia” can only have a chilling effect upon vitally needed discernment between Muslims seeking personal piety and Islamists pursing dangerous sectarian political agendas.”
This chilling effect on free speech is proving dangerous in western Europe in (among other things) the beginnings of sharia law. Even to continue to call Islam a “religion” is misleading.
Adrian Johnson says
Islam is a political movement masquerading as a religion, much like Scientology is a money-making business masquerading as a religion.
They are both cults: Scientology is oriented to brainwashing and scamming rich people; Islam is oriented to brainwashing and exploiting poor people as “pioneers & settlers” in non-islamic regions.
Lioness says
It’s “Islam that metastsized” in the US, not islamophobia.
Crusades Were Right! says
The real disease here is Islamophilia, which has much in common with haemophila…
…they both result in uncontrollable bleeding!
Crusades Were Right! says
*haemophilia
Carolyne says
Mr. Esposita–May I suggest tht you have it backwards. It is Islam which is the cancer which is metastasizing in the US. Have you no shame?
billybob says
“Charges of ‘Islamophobia’ can only have a chilling effect upon vitally needed discernment between Muslims seeking personal piety and Islamists pursuing dangerous sectarian political agendas. ”
I would like to know is, how can you tell the difference?