Bogeyman Muslim, Bogeyman Jew

The Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung in Berlin (Center for the Research of Antisemitism) is about to stage a conference equating hatred of Jews with discrimination against Muslims: "Feindbild Muslim, Feindbild Jude".

Gudrun Eussner tears, in the Danish Europenews, the scientific claim of the conference to shreds. The translation is mine but ought to be taken with a grain of salt because those "self-made" terms are difficult to translate without corrupting their meaning. I have tried to do my translating best:

The attendants can now ... talk about circumstances they have created themselves and dubbed with self-created terms ... bogeyman Muslim, bogeyman Jew, ... Islam-enmity, bogeyman Islam, Jew-enmity, Islam-hostility, "Islam-criticism" (as in quotes, this is a criticism that isn't really one according to the ZfA), Islam-enemies, Islamophobia, enmity towards Islam, self-styled scholars of Islam (for Prof. Dr. Benz the [renowned and courageous] orientalist Dr. Hans-Peter Raddatz...), trivialisation of the Holocaust, Jewish cause (anywhere where the International Jewry can be found), prejudice against Jews (something Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Benz and his staff want to dispel). Antisemitism and criticism of Islam, the only acceptable terms to serve as a basis, have been eliminated from the conference's agenda already.

That the Zentrum is funded by the German taxpayer makes only sense, as it gives him exactly the feeling for which he is craving: Doing something outwardly noble (politically correct), yet ultimately detrimental to the Jews.

I wonder whether some older findings of Benz' own institution will be discussed as well:

Dr. Juliane Wetzel, chair of the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Technical University of Berlin, agreed that anti-Semitism among young Muslims in Germany has been rising in the past five years. "Since the Muslim community in Germany is largely of Turkish origin, there is a lot less hatred toward Israelis and Jews than in comparable communities in Europe," she said. "But in recent years, the youth here have apparently been influenced by Islamic Internet sites and satellite channels, and absorbed certain anti-Semitic stereotypes that they did not have in the past."

As reported by us in 2006.