The surge in Islamophobic bias in the US in late 2023 horrifies the soul. Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Muslim Palestinian boy, was stabbed to dying in Chicago. A Georgia instructor threatened to decapitate a pupil for criticising an Israeli flag he put up within the classroom. A Maryland-based Muslim’s routine donation to a spot of worship in Ohio was reportedly delayed by PayPal “[i]n gentle of the continued nationwide emergency in Israel”.
Within the final three months of 2023, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, acquired a staggering 3,578 complaints about discrimination based mostly on race, ethnicity, or faith. This quantity illustrates the alarming actuality that, underneath President Joe Biden, Islamophobic bias has reached unprecedented ranges, surpassing in some methods even the appalling monitor document of the earlier administration.
By comparability, within the three months following then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s December 2015 marketing campaign pledge to ban Muslims from getting into the US, our organisation acquired 1,098 complaints. After Trump was elected, he issued an government order enacting the ban on January 27, 2017. Within the following three months, CAIR acquired a further 1,813 complaints, bringing the whole of the 2 surges to 2,911 complaints.
Trump’s surges had been fuelled by the intentional deployment of Islamophobic and anti-immigrant stereotypes. This began with the press launch by his marketing campaign saying his pledge to ban Muslims, which referred to a deeply flawed and inaccurate survey by an Islamophobic organisation about Muslim People’ purported beliefs about Islamic legislation and violence. The deliberate determination of his marketing campaign to make the announcement of the Muslim ban pledge on Pearl Harbor Day additionally helped painting Muslims as “international invaders”.
Within the following 12 months, till he turned president and enacted the ban, Trump’s marketing campaign continued to make use of Islamophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, encouraging rising anti-Muslim bias. Violent incidents that came about after the ban included a break-in into the condo of a Muslim couple in Virginia who got here residence after visiting household to seek out “f*** Muslims” written on a wall, their Quran torn to shreds, and all their valuables gone.
Throughout his presidential marketing campaign, Biden accused Trump of fanning “the flames of hate” within the nation and promised to repeal what he known as the “vile Muslim ban”. After he took workplace, he did observe via on his vow.
However Biden’s rhetoric has modified sharply because the escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine in October. He and different liberal politicians haven’t solely supplied unconditional political and navy help to Israel amid accusations of genocide towards Palestinians, but in addition repeated Islamophobic Israeli propaganda.
Biden’s early dismissal of the Palestinian Ministry of Well being’s casualty studies, which a Division of State official later admitted may very well underestimate the true dying toll, deployed a typical anti-Arab and Islamophobic trope: they lie. The truth that he used numbers reflecting the ministry’s knowledge in his State of the Union speech on March 7 can not undo the harm carried out.
Nationwide Safety Council official John Kirby, who with seen emotion has mourned the lives of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russian forces, has attributed mass Palestinian civilian casualties to the inevitability of warfare, mirroring the usage of dehumanising Islamophobic rhetoric seen in Trump’s administration.
In the meantime, Biden’s allies in Congress joined the Republican Occasion in throwing absurd allegations on the solely US congressperson of Palestinian descent, Rashida Tlaib, and voted to censure her.
Amid outrage on the rising surge in Islamophobia, the Biden administration made an try to intervene, nevertheless it fell in need of inspiring any confidence.
In October, we urged President Biden to observe within the footsteps of previous leaders, like President George W Bush who visited a mosque within the aftermath of 9/11, which resulted in a noticeable drop in bias assaults on these perceived as Muslim. But, this easy request stays unacknowledged.
Whereas the president condemned the brutal homicide of six-year-old Wadea and introduced plans for a nationwide counter-Islamophobia technique, these measures do little to deal with the basis causes of the surge.
It’s clear that we are going to not see an finish to this spherical of violence towards Muslims within the US till we see an finish to the violence towards Palestinians in Gaza. And but the essential step of calling for a everlasting ceasefire in Gaza and acknowledging the a long time of occupation and apartheid confronted by Palestinians stays elusive. As an alternative, Biden has determined in latest days to approve yet one more arms cargo to Israel value billions of {dollars}.
You will need to word right here that our knowledge doesn’t paint the complete image. We’re solely capable of report these incidents submitted to CAIR, often by Muslims. We suspect that many extra of these advocating for Palestinian humanity – a coalition that features Christians, Jews, Arabs, Asian People, African People, and others – face hate crimes and different acts of bias at a harmful scale.
President Biden’s rhetoric could have improved from his preliminary unequivocal help for Israel, however the weapons proceed to move to Israel. He has but to enhance his intervention in home Islamophobic bias. With out significant motion, the latest surge in Islamophobia will persist, casting a darkish shadow on Biden’s declare of pursuing justice and equality.
The views expressed on this article are the authors’ personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.