Much Ado About "Islamophobia" 

"This fake Islamic hijab is nothing but a political prop, a weapon of visual terrorism. It is the symbol of a totalitarian ideology inspired more by Nazism and Communism than by Islam. It is as symbolic of Islam as the Mao uniform was of Chinese civilization."
"[The hijab] is a sign of support for extremists who wish to impose their creed, first on Muslims, and then on the world through psychological pressure, violence, terror, and, ultimately, war."
Amir Taheri, author, activist, Islamic issues, Toronto

Khawlah Noman, 11,  accompanied by her brother Mohammad Zakarijja and their mother Saima Samad as she recalls a man slicing her hijab as she and her sibling walked to Pauline Johnson Public School in Scarborough on Friday, Jan. 12, 2018.   Stan Behal/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

"I turned around and I saw him with his scissors. I screamed."
"This is terrible and I do not like it. I felt confused, scared, terrified."
"What you're doing [the attacker] is really wrong, you should not act like this, and especially, I'm a kid."
Khawlah Noman, 11, 6th Grade student, Pauline Johnson Public School, Scarborough

This young girl concocted a story that she was beset by a young Asian wielding a knife that he used to slash her hijab. She informed police that she had been walking to school with her younger brother when the attack occurred, leading her when the man withdrew after she screamed, to cross the street to walk within a stream of other students approaching the school. And even so, she said, the man made yet another attempt to slash her hijab once more. When she arrived at school she informed her teacher.

Did no one, the teacher, the school principal, the police who responded, ask for collaboration by witnesses of what the girl had described? Had her brother seen anything amiss; what did he do when he heard his sister scream? As for the other children among whom she had inserted herself only to be attacked for a second time, what did they see and hear? The girl's statement as quoted above appears rehearsed, as in 'especially I'm a kid'.

Any whiff in the public sphere of an incident described as "Islamophobia" gets instant media attention. Bearing in mind that the very presence of purported "Islamophobia" is the Muslim response to the general non-Muslim's perception that Islam is a rather dubious religion of peace when its adherents run about as committed jihadists prepared to martyr themselves taking with them for presentation in Paradise proof they have killed those deserving to die.

What would inspire an 11-year-old girl to portray herself as a social martyr to the threats that boil all around her in Toronto by "Islamophobists" searching out opportunities to prey on innocent little Muslim girls? There is much made of the prevalence of anti-Muslim slurs and actions in society, but are they as serious and as numerous as Muslim communities attest them to be? Was this girl coached in her actions to elicit public sympathy for the plight of Muslims, beleaguered and detested?

According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada hate crimes committed against Muslims have decreased, and on the other hand hate crimes against Jews have risen. This episode of a young girl purportedly being assaulted in Toronto was highlighted in news media across the world. The BBC was right up there, yet a story about a Jewish schoolgirl in Paris having had her face slashed made news only in Jewish publications and the occasional mainstream media brief.

In the United States, according to A. Z. Mohamed, writing in online Gatestone: "Since 1992... anti-Semitic incidents have been higher than those perpetrated against other groups... To this day, the greatest number of reported religion-based hate crimes have been directed at Jews, and the second greatest against Muslims... in 2015... there was a sharp rise in religion-based hate crimes, particularly against Islam and Muslims. Yet even then, Jews were 2.38 times more likely than Muslims to become victims of a hate crime."

As for the United Kingdom, anti-Semitic hate crimes registered at the highest recorded level ever in 2016 with 1,078 offenses, in comparison to 938 events in 2015. According to the Guardian, the Metropolitan Police (MET) recorded "1,260 incidents of Islamophobic hate crime in the 12 months to March 2017" in London alone. And it is interesting to note that the MET's definition of "Islamophobia" is exceedingly all-embracing. To the point where Islamophobia is present when:

1. Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.
2. Islam is seen as separate and 'other'. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.
3. Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.
4. Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a 'clash of civilisations'.
5. Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.
6. Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.
7. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society
8. Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.

Nowhere does it mention that most of the attacks committed against Jews are incited by Muslims, a situation which has made life untenable for Jews in France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Austria and anywhere else that Jews have lived for hundreds of years as integrated members of their adoptive society, as a result of a later influx of Muslims to those countries as immigrants, refugees and economic migrants.

In Canada, police reported 20 fewer reported hate crimes than in 2015 against Muslims in 2016 for a total of 139. The decrease in police-reported hate crimes against Muslims was the result of fewer reported incidents in Quebec (-16), Alberta (-8) and Ontario (-6). In contrast, hate crimes against the Jewish population grew from 178 to 221 incidents. Increases were seen in Ontario (+31), Quebec (+11) and Manitoba (+7). Figures supplied by Statistics Canada.