With rising tensions within the Middle East, a Washington-based rights group has reported an unprecedent 216% spike in complaints final month associated to anti-Muslim hate crimes within the U.S.
The newest spell of violence, which reignited after the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion and subsequent Israeli assaults on Gaza, has been the catalyst within the rising Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian assaults.
Some of the assaults had been deadly or significantly injured the victims, together with the killing of a kid by a landlord shouting anti-Palestinian slogans and the latest capturing that significantly injured three Palestinian college college students. A Palestinian girl was additionally threatened with beheading on a metro within the U.S. capital.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) obtained 1,283 requests for assist and experiences of bias from Oct. 7 to Nov. 4, a 216% enhance in a mean 29-day interval over 2022, when CAIR obtained solely 406 complaints.
People submitting complaints embody all kinds of Americans, together with public faculty and faculty college students, docs and different professionals, in addition to protestors and mosques.
“The Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric that have been used to both justify violence against Palestinians in Gaza and silence supporters of Palestinian human rights here in America has contributed to this unprecedented surge in bigotry,” CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor stated in an announcement.
One of probably the most critical was the homicide of a Palestinian baby by their landlord. Little Wadea al-Fayoume, 6, was stabbed to dying 26 occasions in an Islamophobic assault in Illinois, U.S., on Oct. 15, 2023, by 71-year-old Joseph Czuba who knocked on the door and tried to choke the mom, and stated, “You Muslims must die.”
A press release from the Will County sheriff’s workplace in Illinois stated: “Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis” stated the assertion, which positioned the killing about 64 kilometers (40 miles) west of Chicago.
Shooting of three college students
Another critical assault was the capturing of three Palestinian college college students out strolling close to the University of Vermont. One sufferer was paralyzed as a bullet was caught in his backbone and the opposite two are in intensive care on the hospital. The three victims of the hate crime are Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali and Kenan Abdulhamid, who had been shot on their solution to a household dinner.
Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad stated in an announcement the three, all age 20, had been strolling throughout a go to to the house of one of many sufferer’s kinfolk after they had been confronted by a white man with a handgun, police stated.
“Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled,” Murad stated. “All three victims were struck, two in their torsos and one in the lower extremities.”
The victims are of Palestinian descent, two are U.S. residents and one is a authorized resident. Two of the boys had been sporting the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, Murad added.
Murad stated Jason J. Eaton, 48, was detained later Sunday after Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) brokers encountered him whereas conducting a canvass on the location of the capturing.
CAIR had provided a $10,000 reward for info resulting in the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator(s).
“Kenan grew up in the West Bank and we always thought that could be more of a risk in terms of his safety, and sending him here would be the right decision,” his uncle Tamimi stated. “We feel somehow betrayed in that decision here and we’re just trying to come to terms with everything.”
Rich Price, the uncle of Hisham Awartani, stated the capturing occurred after the three Palestinian college students attended a party for his 8-year-old twins.
“We had just come home and they were walking around the block and this is when this happened,” he stated.
Stating that he moved to the U.S. 15 years in the past, he stated he may have by no means imagined that this type of factor may occur.
Noting that the capturing occurred as his sister, who lives within the occupied West Bank, had come to the U.S. to stick with them for Thanksgiving, he stated, “Tragic irony is not even the right phrase.”
“But to have them come stay with me for Thanksgiving and have something like this happen speaks to the level of civic vitriol, speaks to the level of hatred that exists in some corners of this country,” he stated.
Price later thanked the Burlington Police Department and its head, Jon Murad, on behalf of the households of the victims.
In response to a query, Price stated Kenan’s household believes the capturing was motivated by hate and that the three younger males had been focused as a result of they had been Arabs and had been sporting keffiyehs.
“We believe in the sanctity of the presumption of innocence and due process. And so we’ll support the authorities as they investigate. Uncle Tamimi said the family shares the same sentiment, finding it hard to believe “it was only a random act.”
Attempted homicide
An tried homicide of 52-year-old Mustafa Ramos occurred in Rhode Island exterior a mosque whereas he was promoting Islamic clothes and spiritual objects earlier than Friday prayers on Nov. 17.
Ramos had a turban and gown and was shot from a car. CAIR referred to as on legislation enforcement authorities to analyze a potential biased motive for a capturing exterior the Providence, Rhode Island, mosque that left one particular person injured.
Police stated a 52-year-old man who was promoting Islamic objects was shot exterior the mosque Friday morning. The sufferer was taken to Rhode Island Hospital. His accidents weren’t life-threatening.
The capturing passed off within the run-up to a busy afternoon of prayers on a Friday, the holiest day of the week for Muslims. “I don’t think it was personal toward the individual,” Islamic Center of Rhode Island Imam Abdul-Latif Sackor stated.
Woman threatened
Earlier On Oct. 18, a Muslim girl and two pals rode the Orange Line on the D.C. Metro on their solution to a protest for Palestinian human rights. She wore a keffiyeh, a standard Palestinian scarf, and the group held indicators, together with one which learn “Free Palestine.”
The Muslim girl claims {that a} white male was gazing them earlier than he allegedly stated: “You people are disgusting” and “How’d you like to lose your life?” At that time, she began recording the person together with her telephone.
In a video made accessible to CAIR, the male particular person asks: “How’d you like to lose yours? How’d you like to have your head beheaded?” According to the sufferer and two witnesses, the person additionally possessed a firearm, which he eliminated barely from his pocket whereas making these remarks. He allegedly made different aggressive remarks towards the lady and her acquaintances earlier than leaving the prepare on the Foggy Bottom-GWU station.
She instantly reported the incident to the Metro Transit Police Department. She shared particulars of the incident with an officer, detective and sergeant on the station, who allegedly questioned the declare {that a} firearm was brandished and argued that this particular person’s remarks didn’t represent an specific risk to her life.
Around a month later, the dying threats had been taken significantly by authorities and a photograph of the alleged perpetrator was launched. The Metro Transit Police Department shared an image of the suspect and referred to as on the general public to determine him on the social media platform X.
Police misconduct
In an alleged hate crime towards a gaggle of Palestine supporters in Laguna Beach, California, on Nov. 26, CAIR referred to as for an investigation into claims that Laguna Beach Police Department (LBPD) officers used extreme power towards the victims of a hate crime.
In a video posted to Instagram, one of many Palestine supporters acknowledged that she, her fiance and sister-in-law had been confronted by a person who stated he was Israeli.
The assailant reportedly tried to step on the top of the lady’s canine and tried to knock her sister-in-law’s telephone out of her hand. The girl claims her fiance stepped in to defend them when three law enforcement officials tackled her and her fiance to the bottom. She describes being thrown into the road, the place her head hit a automotive, and her fiance was put in a chokehold and ultimately arrested. She experiences the police refused to comply with and apprehend the Israeli man as they claimed that they had not seen the preliminary confrontation.
An replace on Nov. 27 from the Instagram account reportedly belonging to the lady and her fiance states that her fiance was launched from jail and that the Israeli man who assaulted them has been arrested.
‘It wasn’t sufficient’
A Former Obama administration adviser, who was captured on video making threats and ranting anti-Muslim feedback towards a road vendor in New York City, was arrested on hate crimes fees on Nov. 23.
Stuart Seldowitz, 64, was charged with aggravated harassment, hate crime stalking, stalking inflicting worry, and stalking at a spot of employment, in line with an announcement from the New York Police Department.
“A 24-year-old male victim stated to police that an individual approached him at his workplace multiple times and made anti-Islamic statements multiple times on different dates, causing the victim to feel afraid and annoyed,” stated the assertion.
In one of many movies circulated on the web, Seldowitz calls the seller a “terrorist” and yells at him.
”You support terrorism. You support killing little children. You’re a terrible person,” Seldowitz is heard saying.
The vendor replies: “You kill children, not me.”
 Before leaving, Seldowitz says: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”
In one other video, which was taken throughout a night encounter with the identical vendor, Seldowitz makes varied threats referring to his clout with “his friends in immigration” and Egypt’s intelligence company, “the Mukhabarat wants your picture,” he threatens.
Wearing a inexperienced hoodie, he additional threatens: “The Mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents. Does your father like his fingernails? They’ll take them out one by one.” The sufferer responds with, “Go, go, go.”
Seldowitz then picks up his telephone and seems to take a photograph of the seller, telling him to “smile for me.”
Refusing to go away the realm, he insults the Prophet Muhammad and additional harasses the v,endor making insulting feedback directed on the Quran.
In one other video, he harasses the identical vendor however is interrupted by a bystander who tells him to go away, saying, “It’s not right; you are harassing.”
Seldowitz served because the performing director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate below the Obama administration. He additionally labored as a senior political officer within the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs.
According to Statistics Canada, the variety of police-reported hate crimes concentrating on Muslims in 2021 elevated by 71% from the earlier 12 months alone.
For the 5 years earlier than that, Canada witnessed the very best variety of Muslims killed in focused hate-motivated assaults of all of the G-7 international locations, in line with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM).
Source: www.dailysabah.com