Anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian discrimination in the US rose 180% after Oct. 7

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023, which also saw sharp rise in antisemitism

Mourners hold signs during a vigil at Prairie Activity and Recreation center in Plainfield, Illinois, for 6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume who was fatally stabbed in a suspected anti-Palestinian hate crime, October 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Mourners hold signs during a vigil at Prairie Activity and Recreation center in Plainfield, Illinois, for 6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume who was fatally stabbed in a suspected anti-Palestinian hate crime, October 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination and hate in the US rose by about 180 percent in the three months after Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught in southern Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, an advocacy group said on Monday.

Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias in the US and elsewhere since the eruption of war between Israel and Hamas, which in turn sparked wider regional tensions.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it has received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023, amid what it called “an ongoing wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate.”

The figure is a 178% rise from complaints in the same period from a year earlier.

Complaints of employment discrimination led the list with 662 instances; hate crimes and hate incidents were reported 472 times; and education discrimination 448 times, the organization said.

Of particular concern was a November shooting in Vermont where three students of Palestinian descent, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, were shot during Thanksgiving break.

In this Nov. 23, 2023, photo provided by family attorney Abed Ayoub, three college students, from the left, Tahseen Ali Ahmad, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Hisham Awartani, stand together for a photograph. (Rich Price via AP, File)

The three students, childhood friends who graduated from a private Quaker school in the West Bank before moving to the US to study, were visiting Awartani’s relatives in Burlington when they were shot in an unprovoked attack, Awartani’s family said.

One of the bullets fired in the attack was lodged in Awartani’s spine, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Another incident that raised alarm was the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American child in Illinois in October.

Joseph Czuba, 71, was charged in the fatal stabbing of six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume and the wounding of his mother, Hanaan Shahin on October 14, and US authorities have said they were targeted because of their Muslim faith and as a response to the Israel-Hamas war.

This undated photo provided on October 16, 2023, by the Chicago chapter of the Council On American Islamic Relations, shows Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Muslim boy alleged killed by his landlord over the 2023 Gaza war. (CAIR-Chicago via AP)

Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League said that in the three months after October 7, US antisemitic incidents rose by 360% compared to the prior year.

The US government recently issued security guidance for faith-based communities amid heightened antisemitism and Islamophobia since October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists poured into Israel, slaughtering some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, of whom 132 remain captive in Gaza, not all of them alive.

In response to the deadly assault, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, which the terror group has ruled since 2007. An aerial campaign and subsequent ground operation has laid waste to much of the Palestinian enclave, and the United Nations has estimated that around 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, more than 26,000 people have been killed, though these figures cannot be independently verified, and are believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires.

The IDF says it has killed over 9,000 operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

The US Justice Department is monitoring rising threats against Jews and Muslims amid the conflict, and President Joe Biden has condemned both antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Most Popular
read more: