US: Islamophobic incidents jump in US amid Israel’s war on Palestinians

Complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination and hate in the US rose by about 180 per cent in the three months after 7 October following the cross-border Hamas attack on the occupation state and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an advocacy group said on Monday.

Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias in the US and elsewhere since October, Reuters has reported. Among incidents in the US that rang alarm bells were a November shooting in Vermont, when three students of Palestinian descent were shot, and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American child in Illinois in October.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said today that it 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 per cent increase on complaints in the same period 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, explained CAIR.

Earlier this month, the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League said that in the three months after 7 October, anti-Semitic incidents in the US rose by 360 per cent compared with the previous year.

The US government recently issued security guidance for faith-based communities amid heightened anti-Semitism and Islamophobia since the Hamas attack in which 1,200 were killed, many of them by the Israel Defence Forces, and Israel’s subsequent military offensive in Gaza that has killed over 26,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women.

The US Justice Department is monitoring rising threats against Jews and Muslims amid the conflict. President Joe Biden has condemned anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

READ: Starving family killed in Gaza just hours after getting food aid