From the classrooms of Birmingham to the pages of Britain’s most powerful newspapers, one word has taken on extraordinary political weight: Islamist.
It is routinely presented as a neutral descriptor; a technical term separating religion from politics. But in practice, it functions less as analysis and more as accusation.
Once deployed, it renders Muslim political agency inherently suspect, irrational or dangerous. The term does not merely describe; it condemns.
British news is now firmly in the grip of what can only be described as an Islamism conspiracy theory: the idea that Muslims, imagined as a monolith, are hell-bent on undermining the state and “western civilisation” itself.
This same assumption now underpins the Prevent programme, where opposition to British foreign policy, anger over Gaza, or even robust expressions of Muslim identity are routinely framed as indicators of “Islamism”. Muslim political consciousness itself becomes the danger.
That assumption was on full display in the political mobilisation around the banning of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from a football match in Birmingham, amid well-documented concerns over racist chanting and public disorder. What should have been a routine policing decision was rapidly transformed into a national scandal.
That’s a non sequitur. Zionism is certainly associated with those religions, but it is not synonymous with them, it is not a religion. Still, to engage with the spirit of your point, I still think Islam is more dangerous than Zionism purely because of numbers. What’s happening is Palestine is obviously awful, but compared to the 1.8 billion Muslims, it’s not as bad. And Islam is growing!
90% of Jews world wide are Zionists
Many Christians are Zionists.
If size is your only metric of how bad a religion is then I guess you’re very afraid of Hindu’s too? Or do they get a bit less media attention?
Not Hindus as people, but yes, I think all religions are dangerous. Does that mean my earlier point about Islam being dangerous is refuted or something?
I think many people like to blame religion for things which have continued to happen without religion. Zionism is a great example because it is an Atheistic “religion”. Last time I’ve checked Muslims were not trying to kill me for existing and just act like normal people. Muslims have become an easy scapegoat for populists in the same fashion to how Jews were an easy scapegoat in the past. Real danger lies with those who have power and capital who love finding scapegoats to blame for problems they cause.
Many Muslims in Iran or Iraq would absolutely want to kill me, a transfem person, just for existing. Let’s not confuse lack of power with lack of desire, or forgive the more regressive parts because progressive parts also exist.
They literally don’t care about you being trans. You just insert yourself into a massive victim role to justify spreading hate against them. Exactly the same as what Zionists do. The only people actually being killed are Palestinians by epic Western liberties.
The only group that would hunt you down is ISIS and they’re literally funded by Israel and the CIA.