The shooting at a mosque and school in San Diego has forced Muslim Americans to ask themselves painful questions. After the killing of three people in an armed attack last week, they now wonder if other places of worship will be targeted next, whether they can still send children to school and trust that they will return home unharmed, and whether they can still safely walk the streets as people identifiable by their faith.

These are also questions that Jewish communities are reckoning with, most recently after the stabbings in London’s Golders Green neighborhood. Over the past three years, against the backdrop of wars in the Middle East, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate have flared across the west, with each rising to record levels. But these two hatreds have rarely been seen as related dangers, let alone confronted as a common threat to societies.

On the weekend before the San Diego attack, tens of thousands rallied in London behind the anti-Muslim agitator Tommy Robinson, who declared a “battle of Britain” and called for “remigration”. “It’s time for many Muslims to leave this country,” he said. Across the west, as support for the far right surges, hostility towards Islam and Muslims has become central to its political platforms, and has spread beyond it. When Muslims prayed publicly in London’s Trafalgar Square in March to mark Ramadan – just as other religions have done on their own holy days – leading Conservative politicians denounced it as an act of “intimidation” and “domination”.

The violence in San Diego came out of the demonization of Islam and the dehumanization of Muslims that has been around for decades – by politicians, in the media, in popular culture and across social........

© The Guardian