13 September 2006
The United States senator Russell Feingold has called on President Bush to stop using the term “Islamic fascism,” saying it harmed the war on terrorism. “We must avoid using misleading and offensive terms that link Islam to those who subvert this great religion or who distort its teachings to justify terrorist activity,” Feingold, who is Jewish and bidding for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, said on Tuesday to applause from an Arab American Institute delegation. “I call on the president to immediately stop using the phrase Islamic fascism, a label that doesn’t make any sense and certainly doesn’t help our effort to fight terrorism”, Feingold was quoted by JTA as saying. Bush has used the term to describe competing threats from Sunni terrorists like al-Qaeda and Shiite groups such as Hezbollah.
