In one of his speeches during the 2016 election campaign, the American President said Donald Trump “Islam hates us”, this statement was not merely a slip of a tongue or an expression of a personal opinion, but rather, according to the “NBC News” network, was part of an escalating global wave investing in fear of Muslims, and turning it into electoral fuel, a source of wealth and influence.
In a report published by the British Guardian newspaper, relying on a joint study between Council of American Islamic Relations (Kiir) and the Center for Studies at the University of California Berkeley revealed that Islamophobia has become an integrated industry, As political, economic and media interests overlap, to create pressure and financing networks for a distorted image of Muslims and work to intimidate societies from them.
Not only is the speeches of individual hatred or positions Populism It is only, but it includes private security companies, funded research centers, the media, and legal institutions claiming to defend Western values, according to the newspaper.
The report confirms that the systematic campaigns that are taking place today against Islam and Muslims are no longer merely a cultural or emotional phenomenon, but rather turned into a huge profit system, marketing “fear of Islam” as a political, security and media producer, and it seems that behind every slogan or stereotype of Muslims, a hidden budget, and a network of relations that funds, distributes and invests in hatred.
Who pays for the intimidation of people from Muslims?
Although many people think that anti -Muslims come from individuals or extremist groups, the reality reveals the existence of an organized network that funds and manages systematic campaigns against Islam and Muslims, with huge budgets.
In almost complete silence from the governments, the report issued by the Council of American Islamic Relations (Kiir) documented in 2021, entitled “Islamophobia in the General Movement”, that at least 106 American bodies spent about 105 million dollars during the period between 2017 and 2019, to support hate speech against Muslims.
According to the same report, these authorities include organizations that claim to work in the field of research and public policies, but in fact they constitute the backbone of the Islamophobia industry, the most prominent of which are:
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- The Middle East Forum, headed by conservative writer Daniel Pipes, and presents itself as an intellectual platform, while repeatedly publishes reports linking Islam, extremism and security threat, and runs projects such as “campus monitoring” and “Islamist Watch”, which targets Muslims in academic and public space.
- Act for America, one of the largest anti -Muslims pressure groups in the United States. It was established by Brigitte Gabriel, and calls openly to impose strict censorship on mosques, and to encourage legislation prohibiting Islamic law. It was classified by the SPLC Center for the Southern Poverty Law (SPLC) within its “hate groups” due to its inflammatory discourse.
- The David Horowitz Freedom Center, an institution that is active in financing anti -Muslims content, works to link Islam to terrorism in dozens of reports and articles directed to the press and decision makers.
- It falls under it sites such as “Jihad Watch” and “Front Big Magazine”, and plays a pivotal role in spreading Islamophobia.
The strange thing is, according to the Bridge initiative at Georgetown University, that these organizations receive their financing through “tax -exempt” donations, which means that the US government indirectly, granted legitimacy and financial support.
According to an analysis of American tax records, there are a number of conservative wealthy people who support these entities, such as the Mercyr family, which also funds extremist right -wing sites.
The same report showed that the Islamophobia network is not only working at the level of content production, but also seeks to influence legislation and policies, by financing electoral campaigns and providing misleading certificates in official listening sessions.
The report concludes that Islamophobia is no longer just a hate speech, but rather has become a political and economic strategy, supported by a strong and complex financing network.
Fear trade .. How is “Islamophobia” sold?
In a report of the Mondois platform on “US security companies investments in a speech IslamophobiaIn it, I confirmed that private security companies, police departments, and military training centers entered the line of investment of fear of Islam, by providing training programs that focus on what you call the Islamic threat, On the other hand, there is any talk about right -wing extremism or white racist groups, although the latter represents a direct and increasingly real threat in Western societies.
This information confirms what the American Union for Civil Liberties revealed, in multiple reports, that dozens of municipalities and security bodies have concluded agreements with private companies to organize training workshops for police officers on “Islamic terrorism”, and the training materials used are often full of fallacies and accusations, and use terms such as “jihad”, “Sharia” and “Hijab” as indications of extremism, in a complete ignorance of cultural diversity And religious within Muslim communities.
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One of the most prominent examples of this, according to the British Guardian newspaper, is the espionage project carried out by the New York Police between 2002 and 2014, which included monitoring mosques, restaurants, Islamic centers, and even Muslim university students, without any evidence of their involvement in suspicious activities.
It was later to file lawsuits against the police department, which ended in its approval of the illegality of these practices, and its pledge not to repeat them.
And Gardian adds that what attracts attention in particular is that the companies that organized these training courses or provided the police with the content, were reaping millions of dollars through contracts signed with the municipalities, security ministries, and even with US Department of Defense.
Among them is international security companies that provide training programs that focus mainly on the depiction of Muslims as a “possible threat”, without differentiating between ordinary Muslims and extremists, which contributes to the consolidation of a dangerous and false stereotype.
In Europe, the phenomenon itself is repeated, as the Guardian newspaper has also documented that a number of “anti -extremism” programs funded by European governments, such as “Prevent” in the United Kingdom, contains training and guiding guides that assume that Islamic religiosity, or even regular prayer, are indicators of a potential danger.
The International Center for Combating Terrorism believes that the paradox is that these programs do not show any real effectiveness in combating extremism, but rather contribute to strengthening stereotypes against Muslims, and increasing the feeling of hostility and marginalization within Muslim communities and neighborhoods. Thus, the idea of ”combating terrorism” turns into a way to enhance division, and security companies and expert advisers in “intimidating the public” become the largest beneficiary of this new market.
The same source adds that the trade of fear of Islam is not limited to media speeches, but extends to security contracts, government grants, and training programs, all of which are in the pockets of companies that provide security as a commodity based on hostility to Muslims.
Hired media and public opinion industry
The European Center for the Monitoring of Racism and the hatred of foreigners “EUMC”, in a report entitled “Islamophobia and the media in Europe after September 11”, indicated that the media played a central role in consolidating the image of a Muslim as a danger, and it is often a tool in the hands of political forces or centers of economic influence that market “Islamophobia” as a product, so instead of the media is a corrective force, involved in many platforms Western recycling stereotypes, through news, addresses, programs and urgent bulletins, and sometimes through dramatic imagination.
According to an analytical study conducted by Stanford University in 2020, news coverage in the United States of violent crimes that the perpetrator is a Muslim, has a more than 357% media coverage than the crimes committed by non -Muslims, even if its nature is similar.
This is evident in the way of selecting words: The term “terrorist” is used automatically if the perpetrator is a Muslim, while others are referred to as “the shooter” or “a psychologically disturbed person.”
In France, according to a report issued in 2022 by the Supreme Audio Supreme Council, some news channels such as CNews or magazines such as Valers Actuelles are repeatedly focused on immigration, security, and Islam issues directly with violence or societal threat.
The report warns that Muslims are mentioned in more than 60% of the reports of security bulletins, although their percentage in the population is less than 10%, and the majority of them have nothing to do with any criminal activity, and the visual image contributes to deepening the effect, as images of mosques, veiled women, or words such as “God are greater” in the backgrounds of the bulletins or the reports addresses whenever an accident occurred, even if the perpetrator has nothing to do with Islam.
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The report concludes that this visual and verbal link is gradually sowed in the collective subconscious. But the matter does not stop at the biased coverage limits of events, but rather transcends them into the production of systematic media content that nourishes hatred against Muslims.
A report issued, in 2021, on the initiative of media inclusion at Annnberg College to communicate at the University of Southern California, entitled “Missing and Mashhon: The reality of Muslims in popular international films”, that Muslims are often depicted as extremists or terrorists in artwork.
The report analyzed 200 international films between 2001 and 2020, and concluded that more than 80% of Muslim characters were related to violence, intolerance, or threat, while the proportion of the appearance of Muslims as ordinary people or positive people only exceeded 3%.
The report also indicates that some American media people are based on attacking Muslims, most notably the journalist Bin Shapiro, who is known for his hostile stances towards Islam on his Daily Wire channel, and receives support from the same financing networks that funds the Islamophobia production centers in the United States.
The report concludes that the media has become a central tool in marketing hatred, stabilizing stereotypes, and justifying strict discriminatory policies against Muslims in the West.
How did Islamophobia change the lives of Muslims?
According to a report issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2021, Islamophobia is not merely a transient discourse or opinion in the media, but rather a phenomenon with daily daily consequences for the lives of millions of Muslims, in the West in particular, and in other regions of the world where this speech is exported directly or indirectly.
When hatred turns into a policy, and is devoted to the media, education, and laws, its effects become comprehensive, psychological, material and social.
In its annual report on hate crimes, the FBI’s FBI numbers indicate that hate crimes against Muslims witnessed a severe rise after every major incident in which a Muslim is accused, or after hostile statements from public figures.
For example, the reports increased by 67% after the Trump elections in 2016, in conjunction with his inflammatory speeches against Muslims, and the matter is repeated after every attack attributed to a Muslim, as physical and verbal attacks rise on veiled women, threats to mosques, and Islamic centers.
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But the influence is not limited to material violence, but it leaks to the details of daily life. In the United Kingdom, a study by the “Tell Mama” center to monitor and record Islamophobia accidents in the United Kingdom, in 2020, reached that more than 80% of Muslim women were subjected to a kind of verbal harassment or discrimination while wearing the veil, whether in the street or in the workplace or official institutions.
In another report, from the French newspaper Le Monde, in 2024, under the title “Secularism in Schools, from Hijab 1989 to the gowns today, 35 years of controversy”, the French political rhetoric against Islam has led to the issuance of laws that prohibit the display of religious symbols in schools and departments, and talk is currently about expanding these restrictions to include private schools and public facilities.
This was reflected in the feeling of many Muslims that they are “under observation”, and that they must constantly justify their existence, and provide what is proven “their integration” according to the state’s standards, not French society.
In a study of the University of Manchester, in 2018, I found that the percentage of anxiety and depression among Muslim youth in Britain is 50% higher than their peers than other religions, due to their continuous exposure to discrimination and poor media representation, as many of them talk about a state of wandering and permanent anxiety, they are required to prove their national loyalty, confirm that they are not extremists, and respond to accusations that have nothing to do with them.
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As for politically, Human Rights Watch sees that Islamophobia provides a popular cover for many repressive policies, such as monitoring mosques, closing Islamic societies, reducing visa grants, and tightening the screws on civil society organizations.
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Sometimes, any protest or opposition opinion from a Muslim is linked to as a “sign of extremism”, which marginalizes Muslims from the public sphere, and pushes many of them to isolation or withdrawal from political participation.
Human Rights Watch adds that the fear industry of Muslims, which is fueled by companies, institutions and media centers, not only harm Muslims, but also rupture of the social fabric and cultivates doubt between the population components, justifies the deviation from the principles of freedom and equality and concludes that the loss does not fall on Muslims alone, but also on the entire societies that allow hatred to a formal policy.
In light of this intertwined scene of policies, media and commercial interests, Islamophobia seems more than just a bias, but it is a profitable system that nurtures hatred and legitimizes exclusion.
The greatest danger is that societies that allow the conversion of fear into trade, and the distinction into a law, only undermines their moral foundations, and excessively overwhelm their unity and their common future.