Amis and Islam

But didn’t his comments appear to conflate the radical Islamist minority and the nonviolent majority? No, Amis said. He is not Islamophobic, as his critics claim, but “Islamismophobic” — that is, opposed to militant Islam. “My slogan on that distinction is, ‘We respect Muhammad, we do not respect Mohamed Atta.’ ” Jihadism, he said, is “racist, homophobic, totalitarian, genocidal, inquisitorial and imperialistic. Surely there should be no difficulty in announcing one’s hostility to that, but there is.”