The difference is that islamophobia doesn't exist. There's never been a case of someone getting terribly frightened with no reason when seeing a mosque or someone looking like a muslim. People who get scared of islam because they're about to get their head cut off or fear muslims will attack their freedom of speech have no irrational fear, but a very real and justified one, so that's not a phobia either.
Islamophobia is a propagandistic term introduced by extremists to silence criticism and warnings for their ideology. Using that word is helping radical islam.
Yes, absolutely. There is no right not to be offended. It's everybody's freedom of religion to not abide someone else's religious rules and ridicule anyone they want, that's exactly the same freedom of religion that allows muslims to be in France and practice their religion in the first place. Not showing the cartoons is kneeling for the totalitarian rule of islam, the claim that their religious rules apply to everybody.
I would agree it's not nice and polite to shove those cartoons under muslim's noses in front of a mosque or something. But that's not the issue with the cartoons. It became an issue because the cartoons were there, in the back of a kiosk in some obscure magazine. So those muslims actually had to make an effort to get offended, and they did. That's not because they're offended in their personal religious feelings, they're offended in their feeling islam rules over everybody so there should not be a drawing that breaks their religious rules anywhere. With a vast majority of muslims worldwide not supporting freedom of religion, and a majority of French muslims, a line has to be drawn. It's not just cartoons, it's also the oppression of moderate muslims in muslim neighbourhoods, often effectively enforcing the headscarf and banning alcohol, it's the difficulty teaching kids about the holocaust en the general antisemitism among muslims. That's not the case in France and that has to be stated clearly, to remind the French muslims who's the boss and to remind them there's freedom religion for all the French, it's not a right of a religion and certrainly not only one religion, but a right of all French citizens. France does not bow to intimidation like so many other countries and everybody who wants freedom should applaud them.