Source: The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-l-esposito/islamophobia-a-threat-to_b_676765.html
We are passing through difficult and dangerous times. The impact of staggering economic crisis and fears of a continued terrorist threat have spawned a culture of hate that threatens the future of our American way of life and values.
The legacy of the 9/11 and post 9/11 terrorist attacks has been exploited by media commentators, hard-line Christian Zionists and political candidates whose fear-mongering targets Islam and Muslims. Islamophobia is fast becoming for Muslims what anti-Semitism is for Jews. Rooted in hostility and intolerance towards religious and cultural beliefs and a religious or racial group, it threatens the democratic fabric of American and European societies. Like anti-Semites and racists, Islamophobes are the first to protest that their stereotyping and scapegoating of these "others" as a threat to all of us, incapable of integration or loyalty, are not Islamophobic.