Unpacking Islamophobia

Reporting Gaza Bias, Silence, and Islamophobia in the BBC

In episode 19 of Unpacking Islamophobia, Bridge Associate Director Mobashra Tazamal speaks with Faisal Hanif, a media analyst at the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) in the United Kingdom. They discuss CfMM’s latest report highlighting the systemic bias in the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza. For nearly two years, Israel’s assault on Gaza—described by leading human rights organizations and UN experts as a genocide—has involved relentless bombing, forced starvation, the destruction of every university in the Strip, and the near-total collapse of the healthcare system. Israel’s violence in Gaza has produced the highest number of child amputees in the world and become the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history. At least 62,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 17,500 children. And because civil society has been decimated and tens of thousands remain buried under rubble, some academic estimates suggest the real death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands. But if you’re relying on Western media, much of this information is minimized—or missing altogether. Since the war began on October 7th, 2023, following Hamas’s attack on Israel, Western media coverage has consistently shown a troubling pattern of bias: downplaying Palestinian suffering while centering Israeli narratives. A new report from the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), titled “BBC on Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards,” offers hard data to back this up. The report analyzed over 35,000 pieces of BBC content and found a clear trend: Palestinian voices and pain were routinely sidelined, while Israeli perspectives were given emotional depth and prominence.

Islamophobia and ethno-nationalist populism

In episode 17 of Unpacking Islamophobia, Bridge Associate Director speaks with Dr. Saher Selod, an Associate Professor and previous Chair of the Department of Sociology at Simmons University in Boston, MA. They discuss Islamophobia and ethno-nationalist populism in the United States, specifically talking about Professor Selod’s chapter in the newly-released book, Global Islamophobia and Rise of Populism. In the chapter, she highlights various events that took place in the last two decades that contributed to the election of the populist president, Donald Trump. The two also discuss Professor Selod’s book, A Global Racial Enemy: Muslims and Twenty-First Century Racism, which analyzed how Islamophobia and the “Muslim problem” has manifested in a number of countries around the globe. Lastly, we touched on a new report from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), which look at Muslim American voters in swing states and the policy issues they are concerned about ahead of the presidential elections.

Islamophobia and 'Muslim boyhood'

In Episode 16 of “Unpacking Islamophobia,” our guest is Professor Shenila Khoja-Moolji. She is the Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Chair of Muslim Societies and an Associate Professor at Georgetown University. She is an award-winning author of three award winning books including her most recent book Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality (Oxford University Press, 2023). In her latest book, The Impossibility of Muslim Boyhood (University of Minnesota Press, 2024), Professor Khoja-Moolji asks: How do we understand an incident where a five-year-old Muslim boy arrives at Dulles airport and is preemptively detained as a “threat”? To answer that question, she examines American public culture, arguing that Muslim boyhood has been invented as a threat within an ideology that seeks to predict future terrorism. Muslim boyhood bridges actual past terrorism and possible future events, justifying preemptive enclosure, surveillance, and punishment. Even in the occasional reframing of individual Muslim boys as innocent, Professor Khoja-Moolji identifies a pattern of commodity antiracism, through which elites buy public goodwill but leave intact the collective anti-Muslim notion that fuels an expanding carceral and security state. Framing Muslim boyhood as a heuristic device, she turns to a discussion of Hindutva ideology in India to show how Muslim boyhood may be re-situated in global contexts. The book is freely available on University of Minnesota's manifold platform: https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/the-impossibility-of-muslim-boyhood To purchase a copy of the book click here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517917197/the-impossibility-of-muslim-boyhood/

Five Questions On The Media's Coverage Of Israel's War In Gaza

In Episode 15 of “Unpacking #Islamophobia”, we are joined by Al-Jazeera journalist Laila Al-Arian who answers “Five Questions On The Media's Coverage Of Israel's War In Gaza" #Gaza War Coverage” and how that impacts the global community today. #Islam #muslims #islamophobia #palestine #gaza #palestinian #palestinians #palestinianvoices #media

Five Questions On Anti-Arab Racism During Gaza War

In Episode #14 of “Unpacking #Islamophobia”, we are joined by ADC National Executive Director Abed Ayoub who discusses anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism during the Gaza war including campus protests and rise in employment discrimination claims across the country.