Last week I had a post about the recent United Nations conference on Islamophobia; it turns out once again that mainstream media gave us only a tiny part of the story. Alexander H. Joffe shows us what a surreal event this really was: Islamophobia’s Big Day at the UN.

For example, the keynote speaker, Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University stated that the term ‘anti-Semitism’ in fact was originally directed at the Arabs in Spainand was directed only at Jews in the aftermath of World War II. Actually, the term dates only to 1879 and was coined by the German journalist and agitator Wilhelm Marr as a specifically anti-Jewish expression.

Nasr helpfully pointed out that Islam was not a homogeneous, monolithic whole. But however heterogeneous Islam was, something called Islamic civilization now sought to “become itself,” to “overcome all the curtailments since the colonial period,” and “regain what it was, and what it has lost.” While “errors” were committed on the Islamic side, on balance Nasr put the blame on the West, not least of all the “festering wound of Palestine in the side of the entire Arab world.” He also stated curiously that there had been an attempt to obliterate the Arabic origins of words in English, such as ‘adobe’ (actually from the ancient Egyptian word for brick, dbt). He also asserted that streams north of Taos, New Mexico had Arabic names.

Many speakers stated that with the fall of Communism, the West, and by implication the United States, need a sinister nemesis, another “Other,” and had found it in Islam. Somehow the fact that almost all the recent military actions by the United States in the last decades have been on behalf of Muslims, in Iraq (twice), the Balkans, and Mogadishu, had been forgotten.

Ahmed Kamal Aboulmagd of Cairo University reminded the audience that all Islamic countries sided with the Allies in World War II, conveniently overlooking the alliance of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Al Husseini, with Hitler, or the Nazi-inspired coup in Iraq in 1941. He also confidently asserted that the Islamic concept of shura, or consultative government, is “unanimously” regarded by Islamic scholars as “essentially the same as democracy.” Furthermore, there was no such thing as ‘holy war’ in Islam.

John Esposito of Georgetown University went beyond defense and skillfully implied that prominent religious leaders were key Islamophobes, and these individuals were tied to the US government. Franklin Graham’s statement that Islam was an evil religion was cited, as was the sinister fact that Graham had spoken at the Pentagon and at the inauguration of George W. Bush. Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, and Jackie Mason (“who also happens to be a rabbi”) were included in the assault. For Esposito the opinions of these individuals also sends a clear message overseas, that America is engaged in a war against Islam, orchestrated by the “militant Zionist Christian right and the neo-cons.” Sermons from Islamists, with their frequent ‘sons of pigs and monkeys’ motifs, apparently send no parallel signals to the West.

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