"One thing that I think could really bring meaningful impact [is] if Islamophobia starts to become seen in the same legal light as antisemitism,” stated Muslim-American commentator Arsalan Iftikhar during a recent webinar.

Hosted by the anti-“Islamophobia” Bridge Initiative of Georgetown University’s Saudi-founded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), it was a natural fit for Iftikhar. This senior research fellow at Bridge was the former national legal director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamist group masquerading as a civil rights organization.

Trump exemplified for Iftikhar how “Islamophobia has become part and parcel of the Republican political ideological platform today,” although his factual errors, coupled with his Islamist credentials, hardly inspired confidence in his analysis. He described the former Arkansas governor and popular political commentator Mike Huckabee as a “former Arizona governor.” Iftikhar’s “Islamophobic zealots” also included conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, a former “belligerent editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller” who in fact founded the Daily Wire.

Iftikhar’s false equation of antisemitism with “Islamophobia” further muddled his argument, particularly given his praise of European laws that include hate speech prescriptions. While antisemitism originated as a pseudoscientific term for unvarnished Jew-hatred, “Islamophobia” is a propagandistic neologism that besmirches all criticism of Islam as irrational fear. For evaluating such terms, he would apparently seek advice from his “good friend Peter Beinart,” a far-left journalist best-known for advocating Israel’s dissolution.