Given Iran is a despotic Islamic theocracy dedicated to destroying Israel and perpetrating a Jihad against the West, and given the murder and rape of 1,200 Jews on October 7, 2023 and last year’s Bondi Beach’s massacre of 15 innocents celebrating a Jewish festival, surely there is more to be done when it comes to understanding the extreme branches of Islam?

It is my opinion that the report commissioned by the Commonwealth Government tilted, A National Response to Islamophobia fails in this regard, especially given its recommendations about education.

Recommendation 28 argues the education sector must implement a framework ‘specifically aimed at combating Islamophobia, alongside broader anti-racism, diversity and social cohesion measures’.

In addition to establishing yet another bureaucratic entity, (the multi-stakeholder working group), the report recommends reviewing existing polices before developing a comprehensive anti-racism framework, with specific guidelines to combat Islamophobia.

More specifically, in relation to schools, the report argues education authorities – including the body responsible for the Australian curriculum, ACARA, state and territory education departments, student and staff associations, and multicultural education experts – all be responsible for developing a ‘Whole-school Anti-Racism and Inclusivity Framework’.

In addition to the Australian curriculum’s three cross-curricula priorities, engagement with Asia, sustainability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, the report argues subjects must also teach ‘Islamic history or Islam-West cross-cultural encounters and exchange, including Muslim contributions to Australia’.

Schools are told to teach ‘the contributions of Islam to ethics in general and universal human ethics in particular’, as well as including ‘Islamic perspectives when teaching humanities and social science subjects’.

Even though Australia is a Western, liberal democracy where Judaeo-Christianity underpins and nourishes our institutions, the report also equates Islam with Judaism and Christianity when arguing all deserve equal treatment in the classroom.

Ignored, as argued by Cardinal George Pell, is that while Islam is similar to Christianity in some respects, ‘It is difficult to recognise the God of the New Testament in the God of the Koran and two very different concepts of the human person have emerged from the Christian and Muslim understandings of God.’

Also ignored is while Jesus in the Sermon the Mount preached ‘blessed are the peacemakers’ and ‘turn the other cheek’, Islam’s founder, Mohammad, used violence and warfare to spread Islam throughout the Mediterranean.

After starting to read the Koran, Cardinal Pell notes, ‘I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned the exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages.’

While the report argues against unfair discrimination, the contradiction is, I believe, in the way it appears to condemn those who are critical or anxious about the Islamic religion through use of the label Islamophobia or Islamophobic.

Islamophobia is defined as being fearful and threatened by Islam and Muslims leading to ‘a range of anti-Muslim behaviours, such as anti-Muslim hatred, anti-Muslim sentiment, and anti-Muslim prejudice’.

One wonders whether those critical of Imams – who publicly celebrated the murder, rape, and imprisonment of 1,200 Jews – are Islamophobic or simply citizens expressing the correct moral judgement in regard to radical and extreme branches of Islam…

To support Ayann Hirsi Ali, who is being threatened with death for renouncing Islam and becoming a Christian, instead of being Islamophobic is surely more about defending her right to freedom of conscience and freedom of speech?

To criticise Dhimmi, where nonbelievers who have been subjugated face three options – either convert to Islam, pay additional taxes, or face death – instead of being Islamophobic is a judgment defending the rights all have to liberty and freedom?

It is important to note the report’s recommendations involving schools is not the first attempt to prioritise teaching Islam in the curriculum. In 2010, The National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies published, Learning From One Another Bringing Muslim Perspectives Into Australian Schools.

The authors of the booklet describe it as ‘as comprehensive resource for Australian schools’ designed to help teachers ‘introduce Islam and Muslim related material’ as well as helping them ‘develop an appreciation of Muslim history and cultures in Australia’.

The need to focus on teaching about Islam is necessary as the 2010 booklet argues ‘most texts in Australian English classes still have a Western or European perspective’ that provides students with ‘a Euro-centric version of history (that) denies them the opportunity to evaluate different perspectives on past world events’.

The American academic Samuel P. Huntington famously argued the end of the Cold War period heralded a new age where future conflicts would be cultural and religious. The battle between Iran and the Israeli-American coalition represents such a battle.

Fundamentalist Islam is committed to a jihad against the West and against Judaeo-Christianity in order to establish an Islamic caliphate. If critiquing or voicing concern about this extreme branch of the religion is perceived as Islamophobic, then I’m guilty.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is a Melbourne-based educationalist and cultural critic.