I should add you should read the hadiths and the Quran to understand better my concern, Islam is evil and 1.8 billions people believe you should be killed if you are a kuffar, a non-believer.

I kinda agree. This word is purposely composed of the word Islam like Islamic terrorist and Islamist and every dumbass knows phobia meaning oooo scary.

I bet many knuckle draggers think this word means scary Muslim rather than scared of Muslim. That's my 2 cents.

I'm sure the word is misused by some at times, but I have to disagree with Hitchens on this one. There is a lot of unreasoning fear of Muslims as a monolithic bloc. The real situation is that there are in fact law abiding Islamic moderates and liberals just like in Christianity. In fact in the US they are on average wealthier, more educated and have less criminals than the general population. I see no advantage to anyone in alienating them with some sort of broad brush; if anything, we need more of them as they are our best natural allies against Islamic fundamentalism.

I will admit that the proportion of fundamentlists in Islam appears to be larger than in Christianity, but I have not been able to find statistics supporting this view. Support for organizations like ISIS are in the single digits among Muslims and nearly non-existent in some countries (Jordan, the US). The only thing I'm willing to say is that Islamic fundamentalists are more overtly violent on a worldwide basis than Christian fundamentalists, but I don't see this as having much, if anything, to do with Islam itself. Christian fundamentalists have bombed abortion clinics and shot abortion doctors, for instance, and I daresay appalling numbers of them would have no issue at all with more widespread violence if they felt they could get away with it. Trumpism itself is a rather violent intervention in civil society, it just doesn't happen to involve suicide vests.

What we need to see as the actual threat is anti-intellectualism, anti-reason, anti-science and tribalism in all its forms and expressions, both religious and areligious.

Hitch sums it up nicely. Perfectly accurate. Though I think it should be "Religiophobia", as they are all equally bad, and should be used to mean a healthy fear of religious doctrine, as opposed to being afraid of the followers of religions. Though they are scary too...

If all religions are fucked up why single any one of them out for special scorn? Unless there's some kind of unexamined prejudice.

This somehow seems like a misquote but it might be from the nutty warhawk period.
Somewhat on topic:

As much as I admired & respected Hitch, there are things we disagreed on. There is 'Islamophobia' & some is irrational but is often pumped up by politicians for shitty ends. Also, he was demonstrably wrong on the war in Iraq, that was an unnecessary disaster! This particular quote seems like much hyperbole & simplification. Not his better 'work'!

I heard Noah Lugeons put it that a phobia is an irrational fear, and that there's nothing irrational about fearing Islam...
I agree somewhat, but there is bigotry against Muslims in general, and that's a crappy thing.

Can't fault him !

Yeah. People who look like they may be from the middle east aren't harrased and abused at all because ignorant folks think they're Islamic. That's all fake news, right?

That all abrahamic religions are equally guilty of atrocities, and its a thinly veiled excuse for accepted racism.

Spot on.