As these examples demonstrate, anti-Semitism (in Germany) is based on a worldview, an ideology, which considers Jews to be an evil which has to be eradicated from the earth. Racism, including resentments against Muslims, is not based on such a worldview, rather on the assumption that those people are less worthy than “whites” (whatever that includes or means). Racism has a rational dimension: exploitation was one central purpose it served. Anti-Semitism is totally different. Anti-Semitism is genocidal and has an extremely irrational dimension. To equalize anti-Semitism with racism or even to use the term “Islamophobia”, an invention of the Islamic Republic Iran since 1979, is dangerous… Anti-Semitism is a specific topic. Important research on anti-Semitism concludes that racism, prejudice and anti-Semitism are not equivalent. No single group of people, except for the Jews, has ever been singled out and blamed simultaneously for mutually exclusive developments like capitalism, communism or liberalism and humanism. For example, the conclusions of the Iranian conference, “A World without Zionism,” and the accusations that “the Zionists” were responsible for the recent crisis in Georgia display the pathologic anti-Jewish thinking of Ahmadinejad and anti-Semites in general.
http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/why-prof-wolfgang-benz-is-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/